Posts by bombastic bob 10923 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015
"I'm quite happy with v40.0.3."
ACK, I installed 53 from ports in FreeBSD recently, and I really do NOT believe that "bleeding edge" wiill EVAR be tracked for operating systems _LIKE_ FreeBSD. Or Debian, for that matter.
"bleeding edge" is HIGHLY overrated. After all, they may SURPRISE us (unpleasantly) by looking/actnig even MORE like Chrome. 'Australis' anyone? (yeah, YUCHHH)
MOZILLA: don't you *DARE* break the add-ons that give me a CLASSIC interface!!!
"quietly enough to avoid Coast Guard sonar?"
it's not likely they'd evade U.S. Navy sonar, but the Navy subs and anti-sub aircraft would kinda have to be looking for them...
The Coast Guard probably doesn't have as good of equipment as the Navy. But they'd coordinate if things got bad enough. During the cold war the military put listening devices all over the ocean. That's going to make it very hard for anyone to get a submarine into U.S. coastal waters without detection.
this tech is really old:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOSUS
http://www.public.navy.mil/subfor/underseawarfaremagazine/Issues/Archives/issue_25/sosus.htm
I suspect it's a lot better, now.
Even the tech that I know about [which shouldn't be discussed here] is over 30 years old and I suspect that things are a LOT more sophisticated nowadays. The threat of a diesel/electric boat sneaking into a harbor to perform a terrorist attack has been on a lot of military minds since 2001.
on a lighter note, the movie 'Down Periscope" with Kelsey Grammer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_Periscope
"you had to lean over the bowl in order to flush."
U.S. subs have a 3 foot lever (with green handle) to operate a 3 inch (or so) ball valve. Instructions for operating the toilet are on the wall. And you could operate it standing up, more or less, without sticking your nose in the bowl.
instructions were something like:
a) ensure ball valve is shut.
b) use the commode
c) open ball valve
d) flush with sea water using sea water valve
e) shut ball valve
f) leave approximately one inch of water covering valve
it was implied that if your crap stuck to the side of the bowl, you were supposed to get some TP and wipe it so it went down the hole. Maybe that's when you'd get a bit of poo-gass in your face.
the toilets were made of a kind of stainless steel that tolerates sea water. but during 'field day' people cleaning the heads would use a bit of coolaid (aka 'bug juice') from the galley to shine 'em up a bit. It actually works pretty well.
According to wikipedia:
"The sunken submarine lies at a depth of 7 m and is being investigated as a possible crime scene"
they link here:
http://www.mynewsdesk.com/dk/koebenhavns-politi/pressreleases/drabssigtelse-i-sag-om-ubaad-2105443
it doesn't say a whole lot [I used google translate and screamed at the irritations] but it's non-wikipedia a link, anyway.
If it's only in 7m of water they should be able to recover it. Question is whether it's now a crime scene.
actually it's "Dive, Dive" and "Surface, Surface, Surface". if you hear anything else, in a movie or anywhere else for that matter, they're doing it wrong. heh. [there's an equal number of blasts on the diving alarm, 2 for dive, 3 for surface]. So no "Dive, Dive, Dive" nor "Surface, Surface". I snicker a bit when they do that. Hollywood... heh
not being too pedantic, because even submarine movies get it wrong sometimes, and they're supposed to have ex-Navy consultants to keep them on track...
actually, a larger sized vessel would have a better positive bouyancy on the surface. You can run the calculations, but basically the displacement of the hull, combined with the volume of air inside the boat plus empty ballast tanks, and the total mass and shape of the boat itself (with empty tanks), determines how much of the boat must be submerged at all times. The larger the boat, the more likely this is to be a higher value for positive bouyancy. Typically that might be something like 85% of the hull submerged at all times, and the other 15% is controlled/compensated by ballast and trim tanks.
in this case...
It's a fair bet that there was a major seawater leak, and too much water went into the people tank, forcing the boat to sink. Blowing ballast and pumping trim wouldn't have been enough to get positive bouyancy.
I suspect that some low-price low-quality component failed (the U.S. Navy has a program called 'sub safe' to prevent the $5 part from sinking the billion dollar boat). It could have been a port hole, a valve, a weld, a pipe fitting, a ballast tank vent, or anything that couldn't be properly isolated, nor have the drain pump [assuming it had one] pump the water overboard fast enough.
All of those kinds of safety systems would have to be designed with surviving a flooding casualty.
So one possibility is that one of the portholes blew out because it was made of substandard materials. Again, $50 part sinking the million dollar boat. Oops.
They should have had some means of RAPIDLY isolating the cause of the leak [assuming there was not]. They should have a means to get the water off the boat assuming "worst case leak". The 'drain pump' would have to be reliable enough to run with the power out (let's say on separate battery power), and run submerged if needed. A backup pump would also be a good idea. Being able to isolate compartments would be even better, especially if you can pressurize a compartment that is being flooded. [watch any old sub movie, and they'll talk about that, pressurizing a compartment to keep the water out, and run on the surface so the water pressure is lower, use the drain pump to get water out, etc.]
So yeah making a _SAFE_ boat that can go underwater to 500 meters is NOT something to be taken lightly. You have to consider the behavior of materials under cyclic compressive stress, the ability to recover from a reasonable flooding casualty, safety systems that can be remotely activated, 'emergency blow' on the ballast tanks guaranteed to work every time, and operating procedures that go along with all of this stuff [as well as maintenance]. And if one of the ballast vents fails, can you recover from that? How about 2 vents? Compartmented ballast tanks with multiple vents helps make that possible. I think the old WW2 boats had 6 or 8 ballast tanks, each with its own vent valve, that was shut as soon as they submerged so they could emergency blow on a moment's notice.
And all of the welds on the hull should be x-rayed for cracks and other defects on a regular basis. The fracture toughness of the hull material should be well known, and all design margins calculated based on the minimum detectable flaw sizes, like would be done for a bridge, or a cargo ship, or anything else made of steel that's likely to undergo heavy stresses during normal operation.
And the maximum allowed depth should be based on the worst case design margin in the worst possible place, for safety. The claims of 400 to 500 meters is pretty optimistic, yeah.
/me points out that at 500 meters, water pressure would be about 800psi... imaging getting hit with a stream of water at 800psi because something broke. Even a half-inch hole at 800psi could slice you in half. It's no joke dealing with this kind of thing.
yeah, about that...
the only thing I could figure is some kind of vulnerability within browsers. NOT disclosing that, and then exploiting it, should be a crime like writing a 0-day exploit.
and I doubt it will detect me running wireshark on my SERVER, which is between every device and the intarwebs on MY network.
if people block them, why shove the ads up our asses anyway?
what's the point? they'll get ignored, and the products advertised may even be subject to boycott, just for having the AUDACITY to bypass the blockers. Advertisers should focus on people who don't mind seeing the ads. But, only asshats and morons would insist on shoving them up everyone's ass like that, and would DARE to bypass attempts to block them. It's just INSANE.
"That is why it has to be said that Bin Laden has won."
too many people trade freedom for (the promise of) security, and get NEITHER.
I still think that border cops and airport cops should "profile" instead. But NOOoooo... political correctness DEMANDS that EVERYBODY be treated like a potential criminal! You know, like TSA feeling up 6 year old girls, looking for hidden bombs or something. Yes, that happened.
So yeah, it's like a "Paranoia Gambit" gone horribly wrong.
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]
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.
"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)
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.
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)
"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..]
"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)
"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.
"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.
"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...
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!!!)
"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..
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
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.
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
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
