Posts by bombastic bob

IBM: Remote working is great! ... For everyone except us

Re: Good Managers

"Noise, meetings and general distractions don't make for productive coders "

nor do 8AM-5PM "workdays". best work is done some time after 11PM with an adult beverage to keep me company.

Re: " useless hour-long meetings "

Useless meetings? Must be using 'Agile' then

telecommute doesn't work well when you hire junior people, though. For senior consultant types? It's probably _IDEAL_.

America's mystery X-37B space drone lands after two years in orbit

@Mark 85

does this count?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Duration_Exposure_Facility

not "satellite" but an orbiting lab that was designed to be brought back.

Facebook is abusive. It's time to divorce it

"That read exactly like the Women's page on a daily rag."

thanks for that image, now I need brain bleach.

Re: Life without facebook is easy!

"Never use Faceb[ook,itch]"

it goes along with:

a) never start smoking

b) never use I.V. drugs

c) never drive while drunk

etc.

Is there going to be a REHAB for FACEB[itch,ook] addicts?

Re: Just say NO to Social Media sites/apps

"with upcoming elections & likely massive ad budgets spent on social media"

And a corollary: Do you *REALLY* want social media and their evil infrastructure INFLUENCING elections? The 'lame-stream' media is bad enough already. But they don't know the details of YOUR life. The 'big brother' nature of knowing EVERYTHING about you, applied to an AI algorithm, and THEN targeting you with specific political advertisements in order to MANIPULATE your voting pattern... well that 'sentence' lacks a verb but I think the rest is obvious.

"Just Say NO" indeed.

/me plays 'Uprising' by Muse - gotta love that 'Dr. Who' mono-synth solo opening

Oracle fires Java warning at IBM and Red Hat

change for the sake of change?

I have to wonder whether Oracle's plan for Java "modularity" is JUST ANOTHER CHANGE FOR THE SAKE OF CHANGE, like so many OTHER things have been in the last decade...

In other words, maybe THEIR millenials are saying "It's OUR turn now"...

I'll keep using OpenJDK / OpenJRE and whatever ends up as part of Android in the mean time.

Hackers emit 9GB of stolen Macron 'emails' two days before French presidential election

the hackers MAY be Russian, but...

the hackers MAY be Russian, but... is it so certain that the RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT would be sponsoring them?

Or is it possible they aren't pro-Putin hackers?

Same with other alleged "connections" to Russian hacking and politics. It seems to be a favorite 'whipping boy' these days.

/me getting my coat now

Australian Taxation Office named as party preventing IT contractors being paid

Re: We OBVIOUSLY are missing big chunks of the story. . .

"We once had a corporate charter suspended without warning for failing to pay a $25 annual filing fee."

that's no joke, either. actually, for small corporations in Cali-fornicate-you, there are a handfull of little things like this, including the $800/year minimum tax, whether your profitable or not.

So after hearing that the bank accounts were 'frozen' (allegedly?) it looks like they'll need an order from a judge to pay the contractors what they're owed out of that. yeah, governmentium obstructing common sense. it sounds plausible enough to believe without question.

this entire situation deserves one gigantic FACEPALM

Today's bonkers bug report: Microsoft Edge can't print numbers

Re: PDF in a Browser?

evince is cross-platform (and free, open source)

Re: And all the students that get stuck with Windows S!

"who might have reason to send an image to PDF."

if you buy something online, and they show a receipt in web format, sometimes it's best to make a copy, and PDF makes more sense than printing. I can't imagine a WORSE outcome than having the WRONG numerical information on that receipt when you try and track your package that didn't arrive for some reason...

systemd-free Devuan Linux hits RC2

you forgot the troll icon

"modern software requires modern solutions which is something rabid luddites don't seem to understand."

(ok you posted as an AC which is why you couldn't show the troll icon)

luddites. use of that term is a dead giveaway. just like the [ab]use of 'modern'.

"why have all the major distos except Slackware and Gentoo adopted it?"

a) "new, shiny"

b) it makes them *FEEL* like they're doing something to implement 'the new thing'

c) peer pressure (lots of 'how come we don't have systemd yet' mail, etc.)

d) same reasons why they implement gnome 3 instead of MATE as a default - right Debian?

I noted that FreeBSD kept gnome 2 for the LONGEST time in ports, and when Mate was ready for prime time, THEN they brought in both gnome 3 AND mate. I'm still using gnome 2 from a couple of years ago and it works pretty well. In fact, NOT having "bleeding edge" all the time made the userland a LOT more stable.

Thing is, when the userland practically *DEMANDS* support from systemd [a continuing problem on BSD systems, which will *NEVER* have it] then you have to put in hacks and patches to compensate. Or put in systemd. Guess which one they did?

We all know why Gnome 3 developers did what it did: they're IDIOTS trying to be Micro-shaft and swallow the touchy-fondly-fat-finger-friendly "trend" coolaid. For desktops, that's been nothing but *IRRITATION* for several *YEARS*. THey had to DUMB DOWN several gnome 2 features that were *THANKFULLY* retained by Mate, like "how many icons can I cram into the icon bar". Try 50. Or maybe just 20, ut you have the system monitor and you organize the icons into groups with variable white space between them. In Gnome 3 you have "3 groups" and you have to engage in odd key+mouse combinations to get to the menu to re-position them (yeah changing THAT was a real "pleasant" surprise, thanks Gnome 3 dweebs). In any case, Gnome 3 carried on in the wrong direction, just like Micro-shaft with the 2D FLATSO FLUGLY "the metro" and now UWP and Win-10-nic.

So now, these same MILLENIAL "it's OUR turn now to do it OUR way" types have created a *MONSTER* that feeds itself and grows stronger due to "all of that".

Fortunately we have Mate, and now Devuan. Thanks, Devuan! Looking forward to the preservation of X11 and *NOT* Wayland, as the SAME PEOPLE drive everything off the cliff like a bunch of lemmings.

Re: It's fascinating that Linux now has the same problem as Windows

"it is a simple matter of reading the man page"

RTFM noted, not appreciated.

Qualcomm to demand US iPhone import ban

The Gods are at war again...

This reminds me of a Ray Harryhausen movie where the gods punish humans as a matter of course, part of their little spats with one another, like a bunch of babies that didn't get the right kind of rattle when demanded. or something like that.

Industrial plant robots frequently connected to the 'net without authentication

Re: "83,000 robots researchers found exposed to the public internet,"

nobody has seen 'Live Free or Die Hard' have they?

Dark-web pedo jailed after FBI and co use vid trick to beat privacy tech

Re: So the FBI ...

a big thumbs up for just saying it - they CAN do actual police work! [good job FBI by the way]

The Perp is 59 years old. add 13 years, 72. plus 10 probation, 82.

Unasked question: just HOW LONG has this guy been at it before getting CAUGHT?

Windows 10 S forces Bing, Edge on your kids. If you don't like it, get Win10 Pro – Microsoft

Re: Windows 7

"When everything is turned off in Windows 10, it doesn't leak any more information back to Microsoft than Windows 7 does."

only if you install ALL of the updates...

And on top of that, Win-10-nic is 2D FLATSO FLUGLY, has "the METRO" SETTINGS intermixed with *EVERYTHING* that control panel USED TO manage well, and "all that cruft" etc. etc. etc. so that even with Classic Shell, it's STILL lipstick on a boar, and NOT on "the oinky end".

Windows 7 IS "the last Windows". What happened after Sinofsky is basically something else...

Need the toilet? Wanna watch a video ad about erectile dysfunction?

Re: Always use the disabled toilets

'Not to go off on a US signage tangent, but how about a warning "Slow Child Crossing".'

(yeah, U.S. signage tangent)

On I5 in the Camp Pendleton area (between San Diego and L.A.) it's all open landscape for miles. Along the side of the road there used to be signs labeled 'Caution' in english, 'Prohibido' in Spanish, depicting a man, woman, and kids running across a freeway. The thing is, this was a REAL problem [and no doubt still is, but the signage wasn't there last I checked]. The presumption is that it's illegals that were taken across the border by coyotes and are now "on their own" in the vacinity of a (no longer operational?) border checkpoint in the middle of that stretch of road.

FYI the sign was similar to this one: https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/289 - that one doesn't have the 'Prohibido' underneath it though.

No similar signs on the public bathrooms at the nearby rest stop, though... (regardless of the amount of wet paper and other mysterious things on the floor)

S is for Sandbox: The logic behind Microsoft's new lockdown Windows gambit

Re: It's fairly pointless...

"Desktop Bridge allows for almost any Win32 application to be repackaged for the store."

Fine. Let Micro-shaft do it FOR us. I'm not going to bother. win-10-nic is all 2D FLATSO FLUGLY and I don't want MY applications "looking like that". bleah.

And if Microshaft is STUPID enough to go through with "banning" Win32 applications from *THEIIR* subscription-based OS [looking into the future...] then that's THEIR market-fail, and I'll just continue working on cross-platform development so that Linux users will have nice native applications to run using the SAME SOURCE CODE.

/me wonders if a good cross-platform development kit would convince people to thumb their noses at UWP...

Re: Windows Store, oh goody!

"they might start to take the new Windows seriously and start to develop for it properly."

well, THIS developer [me] gave up on developing Winders applications, particularly for Win-10-nic. Sure, I'll do *occasional* Win32 applications for 7 (and even 'Ape') users. FYI that's 3/4 of windows machines last I checked.

But I will *NEVER* do "UWP". *NEVER*

I don't do ".Not" either. Similar reasons. And one of MY binary executables is typically self-contained, statically linked, etc. No shared lib B.S., no DLL hell, no 3rd party "install all of this too" garbage, no run-time version confusion, yotta yotta. It only uses the Win32 API, as designed. You could copy it to ANY directory and run it, and it would work. Seriously!

(and if there are optional components installed as DLLs they would be just as independent, needing no external DLLs to load other than the OS itself, and the system would work WITHOUT them since they're 'optional')

We don't need some B.S. Micro-shaft ABOMINATION like ".Not" or shared MFC or ATL or [worse] UWP to write an application, when 3/4 of the MARKET POTENTIAL is running something that does not *NEED* any of that!!!

SUMMARY: if I'm right, developers will give UWP (and win-10-nic "app" development) a GIANT MIDDLE FINGER and *require* something NOT "win-10-nic S" to run the thing. And nobody will drink "the new coolaid", and this whole "Win-10-nic S" thing will *JUST* *DIE* (with snarky laughter all around).

the PC has been taking its long, sad journey into becoming a niche???

If Micro-shaft based its market strategy on this, for this 'S' product (which stands for a word that rhymes with 'spit' and 'quit') then they are COMPLETELY out of touch with reality!

The PC market for 'new sales' does NOT reflect usage. How many times must this be explained?

People aren't buying new PCs, or replacement PCs, as they used to for the following reasons:

a) they like what they have (windows 7 for example)

b) they don't like what they see (win-10-nic, not enough perceived "better" performance)

c) they're concerned that the software they purchased, which runs fine on the existing computer, won't work on "the new one"

d) depressed economies [this should be rectified soon]

[there may be other reasons, but I think these are the main ones]

So when you see net statistics that show that HALF of the computers already out there are "old machines", and they're NOT being "up"graded to a Win-10-nic box [as an example], then the problem isn't that there is a DECLINE IN PC USAGE.

the problem is that NEW PCs are NOT BEING PURCHASED like they used to be. For the reasons I already stated.

Micro-shaft could have produced an OS that people would buy a new PC to get, or purchase an upgrade to get. Instead, they went with Win-10-nic. NOW, they put LIPSTICK on the NON-OINKY END of the pig, with this 'S' {profanity}.

And they're doing it on PREMIUM hardware, like something a Mac user would pay for?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

what a bunch of MAROONS!

Microsoft, Oracle sued: Tech duo accused of trampling DB patents

universities are patent trolls now?

I have to wonder about the motivations behind this...

All of these patents apply to storing DNA information, from what I can gather (a generic database is not covered by this). To get a patent, you have to be SPECIFIC about your invention, whether it's a physical device, algorithm, or whatever. In short, a blanket "for loop" patent would be denied on the basis of it being trivial and generic. "Use of a for loop to calculate prime numbers" might be patentable since it's a specific unique usage for a specific application. But patents that are trivially obvious, or 'too generic' or 'too vague' shouldn't be granted, but apparently are granted anyway [I've seen a few].

These trivially obvious, generic, and/or vague patents are the ones the patent trolls EXPLOIT in order to extract money in the form of punitive damages and legal costs.

So after a short amount of overview on this, I'd say the university is IN THE WRONG, unless Micro-shaft and Oracle are *specifically* working on a DNA database and are blatantly violating their patent for some reason...

(which I doubt)

Republicans go all Braveheart again with anti-net neutrality bill

Re: Festering swamp rats!

"Outlaw corporate donations, do away with super pacs and all the other ways they use to funnel money into campaigns"

that would actually hurt the DEMO-RATS the most. Because THEN, corporate donors like Micro-shaft, Google, and... GEORGE SOROS's many "non-profits", wouldn't be able to keep the socialists in power over at the Demo-Rat party HQ. Then again, maybe THAT swamp draining would be a good start.

the unfortunate reality is that by limiting the contributions of INDIVIDUALS, these "super pac" corporations were formed. That was part of "campaign finance reform", which obviously was NOT "reform". It helped to empower those who could 'work the system' through such non-profit corporations, as well as empowering organizations like labor unions.

So who do you blame? GUMMINT!

politicians will find SOME way to screw it all to hell

"What exactly are these people smoking?"

probably the same crap that they refuse to legalize.

yes. I'm saying they're hypocrites. They're politicians. it means the same thing, more often than not.

Politicians should just get the hell out of the way. No internet taxing, no regulation beyond protocols [that make it possible to HAVE an internet], and let the FTC decide what the corporations can do for whatever business interests they might have [selling our data, for example]. the FCC is about communications, NOT about regulating content, nor preventing prioritization, nor telling ISPs they can't offer 'different pricing' for various services or service levels [even if that means no overages for approved content], yotta yotta yotta.

THAT is what this is all about. The FCC should have NEVER tried to regulate "these kinds of things". And it should never try AGAIN. Laws to prevent that from happening are reasonable.

But you know politicians, they'll find SOME way to screw it all to hell...

Unpaid tech contractor: 'I have to support my family. I have no money for medicines'

Re: I lack sympathy, somewhat.

"Thus there is no choice."

there are always choices. fate is what you make it. your choices might be limited by circumstance, but you can always make a choice.

In the circumstances you describe, the RIGHT choice just might be "re-location" or a career change.

Re: Cash in reserve

"Invoicing terms are 30 days, often paid late."

yeah, and if you get unlucky and have a couple of "non-paying" customers at the same time, it complicates things a bit more. can happen. And yet the work is still there. So what do you do? Well, sometimes it means taking out a loan, and smiling, and doing the work, as long as there's a good chance of getting paid for it down the road. It's the world of contracting and business in general... Especially for freelancers and privateers.

yeah when you sign BOTH sides of the check, you find out a lot of things that most wage slaves don't know about, from payroll taxes to getting customers to pay up.

LinkedIn chatbots to help with 'important conversations'

Re: Old fart here.

another old fart, who tried to use LinkedIn for what it was intended when it was first invented. You know, like an on-line resume thingy, possible for job searches as well. As it turns out, since Micro-shaft took over, I'm getting SPAMMED with "do you know these people" e-mails. I have been deleting them.

I'm considering deleting my profile as well. I wonder if the spam mail will stop...

I don't do Faceb[itch,ook], I don't do Tw[a,i]tter, and soon I probably won't do LinkedIn, either.

It's losing its value as a place for executives and professionals to advertise their skills. It's turning into a complete WASTE of effort. I haven't updated my profile in a couple of years now. And if I do choose to log in, I'll use a special browser that automatically erases ALL history/cache/cookies when I'm done. I'd JUST go there, to avoid ALL tracking. And no other browser configs allow cookies or tracking from ANY such site. I made THAT happen 3 or 4 years ago, when they started the TRACKING CRAP. That wasn't enough to make me go away entirely, but it WAS enough to make me "do that stuff" to AVOID TRACKING.

It's Russian hackers, FBI and Wikileaks wot won it – Hillary Clinton on her devastating election loss

Re: Lost because female ?

The faces she pulled as she tried to digest the question, and frame an answer was priceless.

You, sir, a beer, deserve!

Re: Hillary, email, and Electoral College...

"Fast forward to a private email server."

that's just the latest in a long series of corruption by Mrs. Clinton.

how about EVIDENCE TAMPERING in a case where she defended a CHILD RAPIST? The evidence just *disappeared* after her team got a hold of it to "do their own analysis".

Then there was ALL! THAT! SHREDDING! of Whitewater documents and Rose Law Firm documents that had been moved to the White House, and at some point someone saw something and *voila* SHRED PARTY!

And don't forget about Vince Foster. Why DID he "commit suicide" anyway?

And there's the entire BEN GHAZI incident. Mrs. Clinton, was it *REALLY* some stupid YOUTUBE VIDEO that caused all of that? Or maybe it was TERRORISM coinciding with the ANNIVERSARY of 9/11 ???

Mrs. Clinton has a nice record of her "accomplishments" allright, shifting the blame to ANYONE ELSE, doing "the side step", covering things up, shredding, erasing, deleting, obstructing, and DOWNRIGHT LYING.

THAT is why she's not president!

Microsoft sparks new war with Google with, er, $999+ lappies for kids

Windows 10 S can only use apps from the Windows Store

this implies several things:

a) you MUST agree with Micro-shaft's EULA and use a Micro-shaft cloudy logon

b) you MUST only run CRapps from "the Store" which contain adware and spyware (particularly the 'free' ones).

c) it's being MARKETED! TO! CHILDREN!

d) CHILDREN are being privacy-violated, target-marketed, etc.

In other words, it's a complete cluster-BLANK of FAIL, designed ONLY to accomodate and condition the next generation into *ACCEPTING* this kind of ABOMINATION.

Micro-shaft - come up with something GOOD for once, ok? Quit shoving this CRAP out the door and up/into our collective rectums!

Male escort forgot pregnancy protection, scores data protection instead

Re: I feel sorry for the child

"fishing around for 7 years worth of back payments probably has very little to do with the concerns of the child."

yeah, if she can afford an expensive hotel and a gigolo for 3 nights, perhaps she can afford decent food/clothing/school for the kid?

"Meal-ticket Mommy" indeed... can you say BACKLASH?

Trump trumps US Digital Service with order to establish American Technology Council

Re: I've never heard of 18f

18f - isn't that what a bunch of 45M's always say on IRC? [especially when they're trolling for 13f's or want to see a bunch of 23Ms embarrass themselves for kicks]. Ok don't make me explain "IRC" please...

/me thinks: OH MY DIETIES, there's a GIRL IN THE CHANNEL! half the participants begin crowding around "the girl" and behaving like the lonely, horny young males that they are. '18f' in an IRC channel is like blood in shark infested waters, or yelling "Food Fight" in a college cafeteria.

Re: vision, strategy, and direction

It could be worse, "silly valley" interests violating our privacy and monetizing whatever we do online (and then targeting us with advertisements as a form of big-brother psychological manipulation).

I'm glad to see them "not at the table". but yeah, gummint technology programs like that are kinda laughable anyway. but it makes people in gummint "feel better" about it, I guess...

/me facepalms anyway

Post Unity 8 Ubuntu shock? Relax, Linux has been here before

Re: Excuse me!

"20+ comments without a single moan about System D"

I just added something. you should be happy now.

Re: Losing Unity 7/8 is not the end of the world!

"I can understand Ubuntu wanting to go with GNOME desktop as that is an easy path to Weyland and getting rid of legacy stuff"

yeah, about that...

I'd rather see "legacy stuff" patched and streamlined, than to be forced to "up"grade to someone ELSE's "vision" (read: drug-induced hallucination) of the future of computing.

I have an equally LOUD NO for Wayland as I do for systemd.

In short, when you have "legacy stuff" that people WANT (read: 'X server', 'system V'), why would it get ELIMINATED? Because, some dim-bulb clueless MILLENIAL "engineer" *FEELS* ??? (it's OUR turn now! change EVERYTHING!)

yeah, yeah, "grampa" wants his desktop computer running the SAME way it was in the early noughties, just running on a faster computer, with security patches and streamlined algorithms, and without all that "crap" in the way ('crap' referring to things like Unity , Gnome 3, hamburger menus, fat-finger friendliness...). There's a lot more of US than there are millenials, too. One word: Devuan. I imagine they'll NOT have Wayland, either.

Anyway, GOOD JOB CANONICAL for abandoning Unity [those who want it, it's open source, start a foundation to maintain it]. And also GOOD JOB for making Ubu work with "all of those flavors".

the difference between Canonical of the past and now

seems to me that the last part of the article got this one right: A change in focus from what THEY want to what the USERS want.

Rejoice, for Linux 4.11 has been delivered!

Re: Systemd

troll icon observed. but it's a tiring joke.

Secure Boot booted from Debian 9 'Stretch'

UEFI needs to *JUST* *DIE*

UEFI needs to *JUST* *DIE*

If a non-windows OS distro *MUST* comply with this jack-booted thuggery, then it's no longer "our hardware that we purchased". That's because SOMEONE ELSE has just decided FOR us how WE must 'play with our own toys'.

It's a question worth asking: Why is the FCC boss being such a jerk?

Re: Bigger Government is never the answer

"You do realise that net neutrality is about restricting control by corporations, not taking that control for government, don't you?"

Is *THAT* how you *FEEL* (not think) what 'net neutrality' REALLY is about?

You missed the point, then. The ACTUAL regulations were NEVER about that. They were about ENABLING Facebook and Google, and PREVENTING independent providers from offering competitive services for an extra fee (as one example).

yeah, "net neutrality" *FEELS* correct (and is sold through that *kind* of emotional manipulation, like so many OTHER socialist/lefty ideas), but the reality of it is FAR FROM BEING CORRECT.

When you enable packet prioritization for a fee, for example, so long as it only marginally affects the normal flow of unprioritized traffic, the ISPs can use the extra revenue to improve their services overall (which they will). And if they pocket the money, that's their business. Someone took a risk to start and/or invest in that business and THOSE people who risk deserve the rewards reaped from good business.

But it's more likely that a service provider who puts the profits back into the company will compete better, and make more money in the long term. That's what I expect human behavior to be like, not the false (emotion-based) picture of pure greed and world conquest that says otherwise.

Seriously, the whole "net neutrality" thing is all EMOTION-BASED KNEE-JERK TOUCHY FEELY CRAP. As long as the playing field remains level, let people charge whatever the market allows, for whatever services they can, without screwing everybody else over (and then demanding more money, later - stopped by a 'level playing field'), so that the USA [as one example] can get its infrastructure up to the standards of some of the newcomers into the world of the intarwebs, or those with denser populations [where it's not so expensive to lay new fiber lines to everybody's doorstep].

'Net Neutrality' is yet another SOCIALIST philosophy of *FORCING* *EVERYONE* down to the same *MEDIOCRITY*. Thanks, I don't want mediocrity. I want *GREATNESS* !!!

Re: Bigger Government is never the answer

EXACTLY. I happen to *LIKE* what Pai has been doing, which is to UN-DO the SOCIALISM that's been CREEPING into the FCC.

The FCC's job is NOT to regulate content or what is done with that information. The FCC's job is to define standards that allow everyone to "play nice" with one another within a limited context of delivery, from wired to wireless. This includes frequency bands, licensed spectrum, unlicensed spectrum regulations, communication standards and protocols, and things of THAT nature. What is done _WITHIN_ those regulations, i.e. "the content", is NONE! OF! THEIR! BUSINESS! (I'd even go so far as seeing 'decency standards' abolished on pubilc airwaves and cable networks, but the Supreme Court has already made it legal to regulate 'speech' on the basis of 'prurient content' so that would be a difficult case to make these days, even in the name of freedom).

So at the very minimum, we have the FCC crossing over into FTC territory, which should not be allowed. It would only result in confusion and too much gummint bloat. Pai is reversing the regs that step on the FTC's territory, and RIGHTFULLY SO. I say "more of the same, please!"

As for the FTC, what they're already doing with banks and privacy can simply be extended to anyone on the internet that provides a service, such as ISPs and telcos and web sites (and Micro-shaft). Yes, that would probably stop Micro-shaft, Google, and Facebook from abusing your privacy, at least without your explicit consent, and that's the point. The regs belong at the FTC level, not the FCC.

Solve the REAL problem!

Don't listen to the doomsayers – DRM is headed for the historical dustbin, says Doctorow

Re: DRM isn't going away

"That requires DRM on the updates."

NO, it doesn't.

there are better methods than DRM available for protecting the validity of an update, through the 'OpenSSL' library and certificates, etc..

DRM just makes it illegal to reverse engineer things and do simulated break-ins and other kinds of analysis on the security. That will *NOT* stop evil hackers from doing it. It just makes it hard for security auditors and regular people, particularly those who live under the jurisdiction of such laws. Elsewhere on the planet, nobody gives a rat's ass.

A law does NOT protect anyone/anything unless people are WILLING to OBEY that law.

you could apply the same *kind* of thinking to gun control laws, and then look at Chicago and Venezuela (spelling correction, tiny font on input screen makes it hard to read while I type). Yeah, how good is it working for THEM???

DRM is just plain stupid. I noticed that the word "feel" was used to describe how it got there, i.e. the content creators "feel" etc.. No *WONDER* it's so *BLANKED* up!

Facebook and Google gobble '99 per cent of new digital ad cash'

you mean Bing and Win-10-nic barely had any?

if Bing and Win-10-nic and MSN and other Micro-shaft ad-revenue-generators did less than ONE PERCENT, then WHY oh WHY did Micro-shaft "go there" with Win-10-nic?

it ain't working, yeah. they should give up and go home, and do what they're known to do "reasonably well", and NOT try to be Google and Facebook, a day late AND a dollar short (for that matter).

Just delete the internet – pr0n-blocking legislation receives Royal Assent

Re: Hmmm

"*click YES*"

NOW they're gonna want a naked picture to verify your age based on AI software analysis

Re: The Ruling Class

"I'll fire up my VPN and go looking for it."

yeah, about that... ISP filtering doesn't work well when people have access to VPN or Tor. So as it is over here across the pond, a stupid law that tries to prevent people from doing things that fall under the blanket term "vice" ONLY punishes those who are willing to obey that law. And those who circumvent such things will simply laugh at it.

The USA had an "experiment" early back in the 20th century called 'Prohibition'. The rise of organized crime and widespread DISREGARD of the law (and unofficial increase in Canadian and Mexican liquor imports) drove its repeal a decade or so later.

A similar law was passed in the 1970s, restricting highway speeds to 55mph. It was widely violated as well. California highway speeds typically moved at 65-70mph while that law was in effect, and police knew that traffic moving along at the same speed was SAFER than randomly pulling people over and citing them for doing more than "the maximum speed". The 1990's power changeover in Congress, under Newt's leadership, REPEALED that [Reagan had orchestrated a partial-repeal in the 80's but couldn't pull off a full repeal - that took a majority in Congress].

Anyway those are TWO examples of attempts to legislate against the will of the people, and the LAUGHABLE and widespread willful disobedience of the law that resulted.

Scratch the Surface: Slabtop sales slump takes the shine off Microsoft's 2017 so far

Re: Old Tech

well, the last couple of responses hit on what I mean by 'easily install Linux' - in essence, you want it to have hardware that has Linux drivers available, or at least a high level of compatibility. Maybe not every button or enhancement/feature is supported, but the basic functionality would be there. That kind of thing.

Everything I read about Surface (including comments on this article) suggest that putting Linux on a Surface is still potentially problematic, and not something that can be done without effort/hacking/tweeking/etc.

That being said, I think Micro-shaft could improve their sales by MAKING IT support Linux more easily, even shipping them with Linux pre-installed. Or, perhaps, Windows 7...

(but THAT would mean 'admitting defeat' with the post-Sinofsky stuff, and they don't wanna do that, REGARDLESS of the potential profitability!!!)

Re: Old Tech

Surface is REALLY failing because it's all Win-10-nic. And "Ape" before that.

Now, if it could (easily) run LINUX...

Flatpak and Snaps aren't destined for graveyard of failed Linux tech yet

'bleeding edge stuff' is often overrated

yeah, 'bleeding edge stuff' is often overrated. In particular, when the interface suddenly changes to something you *HATE*, like 2D FLATSO or "hamburger menu" fat-finger-friendliness.

Both of those *kinds* of things have happened somewhat recently. I like the look of Firefox without the hamburger. And I despise what's been done to Chrome.

if "developers" would stop changing things around like that, and focus on security and useful features, maybe the existing Linux distros would track more closely to 'bleeding edge'.

And yeah, static link the binaries, please. It would make cross-distro installs (and especially running on things like FreeBSD) a *lot* simpler. Maybe "just offer a binary built like that" and see how popular it becomes.

Intel's Optane in PCs is as good as it will get for years, says analyst

but if we have to run Win-10-nic to use it...

but if we have to run Win-10-nic to use it, then it's just not worth it (to me anyway).

Remember, Micro-shaft will not support new tech with Windows 7.

Republicans want IT bloke to take fall for Clinton email brouhaha

Re: Bah!

"I think Fox News is extreme right wing"

eh, no. right of center is acceptable, but NOT extreme. They've got Juan Williams, after all...