Posts by bombastic bob

Ex-IBMer sues Google for $10bn – after his web ad for 'divine honey cancer cure' was pulled

Re: But seriously though folks....

"The market was also skewed to promoting expensive therapies over research into the causes."

Well, when a cancer patient would have 6 months to live without the expensive therapies, _AND_ the research has been taking YEARS too long to save that patient's life, I think the expensive therapies make more sense. [and so would medical marijuana if it gives patients 'the munchies' so they don't starve to death when the expensive chemotherapy makes them so nauseous that they can't eat - yeah a somewhat practical and inexpensive add-on to the expensive therapy].

Re: I can hear sirens

"The FDA can make you recall every product at fault and fine the bejesus out of you."

And I'm sure that would make their product "illegal enough" (for having made illegal claims) to support Google's decision, _AND_ there's no doubt in my mind that some kind of liability is involved in allowing "illegal" products to be advertised through Google's ad network.

And so, Google was right to deny the 'ad words' for a product that makes claims that violate FDA regulations, and even though it's only *slightly* illegal it's most likely Google's final decision anyway.

Google is a ginormous "deep pocket" target for lawsuits. I just hope they don't pay anything to settle.

Boeing-backed US upstart reckons it'll be building electric airliners

Re: Big Problem

actually LiPo batteries are MORE DANGEROUS when they're discharged... (they tend to gas, expand, maybe blow up, etc. )

Re: Reality check time?

solar power density is around 1.4kw per square meter. That's less than 2HP per square meter if I did the math properly. I looked that up and found it on a single web site. Perhaps you might corroborate that with other sites. I'm too lazy to do that, heh. And that isn't taking into consideration the "less than 100%" efficiency of a solar panel. Aren't they around 30% these days?

I think if you did the math, solar energy at ANY altitude [vs the weight of the panels to collect it] would be a net LOSS if you tried to implement it on an aircraft. I cite an earlier post regarding solar cars in Australia...

Re: Reality check time?

"Simple reality is that "renewable" aviation is going to have to run on synthetic paraffin. And that is going to be VERY expensive."

why paraffin? why "renewable?"

last I heard, fracking will give us up to 100 years of oil supply at current consumption levels. BP had a more conservative estimate back in 2014 of about 53 years...

so why paraffin? makes no sense.

if nothing else, use SEWAGE and ORGANIC GARBAGE to make oil. As I understand it, a process for doing so was invented in the 1950's involving high pressure/temperature and a layer of CO gas and maybe some catalysts, and from what I've read, it's an EXOTHERMIC process once you get it going. Yeah, EXOTHERMIC. think about THAT for a moment...

Re: Just a matter of timing

there was a hybrid nuclear powered bomber once (or being researched, may have never flown). It (would have) used regular jets to take off, and the nuclear engines to keep it in the air. At least we know that a nuke reactor has a VERY high power:weight ratio. So, ya wanna fly on THAT plane? Heh heh heh.

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

well, maybe when we get fusion reactors going, it would be a nice alternative. but then again it would be best suited for SPACE planes, and we'd still have the terrestrial ones using standard jet fuel.

Don't forget that MOST electricity for electric cars already comes from fossil-fuel power plants. There's just not enough "Mr. Sun" or wind to do it any other way.

Ubuntu UNITY is GNOME-MORE: 'One Linux' dream of phone, slab, desktop UI axed

Re: Makes sense

"there is now a way for gnome and KDE apps for example to co-exist on one desktop; This idea needs to be pushed further into a generic API standard that anyone can write to."

open desktop standard. I've been working on my own toolkit for a few years now. yeah, it's slow going because I have to work for pay to make the bill collectors happy. In short, if all you do is handle the clipboard correctly, everything else should work fine. Let the window manager draw the outer stuff, then just make everything else play by the rules written up as part of the open desktop standard. I've tested with fluxbox, KDE, gnome, mate, etc. and this is pretty much how it works. The downside are the things that are in gnome settings that aren't truly compatible, but there are ways around that, too. I forget the details already but I had to deal with them so I have a general idea of the existence of standards, and the clipboard being one of the more difficult things to manage properly. (I came up with a threaded method of doing it so I could process things asynchronously without stuttering the UI).

Re: Glad someone in this world has the balls

"management are too scared to admit defeat, and continue on down the road of pretending everything is all right"

Oops - don't say the 'M' word! Or the 'W' word, or the '10' number, or...

Re: Mir -> Wayland then?

ACK on Wayland's serious shortcomings. Wayland and systemd - we don't need either one!

I'm glad that Unity has been shot dead. I always _hated_ it.

Ubu with Mate, though, works pretty nice. same with Mint/Mate (or cinnamon for that matter). Perhaps the Ubu folks should re-consider their use of gnome 3 next...

Let's just keep X11 working well and stick with this old yet well supported standard, and stop trying to migrate everyone off of "something that works" to "new, shiny because WE happen to FEEL".

Put down your coffee and admire the sheer amount of data Windows 10 Creators Update will slurp from your PC

Re: Fighting back?

"Shouldn't be too hard to inject bogus data into their valid data stream, if not outright replace the valid data."

/me considers a netfilter module. you can inject (or remove) whatever you want into a TCP stream using a netfilter module. It's how the FTP proxy works, for 'PORT' commands etc.. Create a special firewall rule for whatever IPs and ports are involved in telemetry, let the netfilter module do it's "magic". Ok you'll need something you can lsmod a netfilter module with, and alter the firewall rules for, but openWRT would probably qualify for that one.

Lenovo's 2017 X1 Carbon is a mixed bag

Re: Did you try Linux on it?

I wouldn't touch it unless it COULD run an off-the-shelf (ok randomly downloaded) Linux distro without hardware compatibility problems.

I don't need a Win-10-nic laptop. But, I _do_ need a laptop. OK it would be best with FreeBSD running on it, but if Linux runs well, chances are FBSD will, too.

OK... Red wire or black... *Clickety* You've emailed the schematic? Yes, got it! It's opening. And... WHAT? NO!

Re: What is considered an acceptable bandwidth ?

"Why is that not adequate for anyone's normal requirements ?"

a) MANDATORY! WINDOWS! UPDATE!

b) ridiculously large javascript libraries on CDN servers that update too frequently

c) outrageous use of javascript on web pages

d) insane bandwidth requirement of embedded ad videos and animated graphics

e) 'intro flash' on top level web pages (required to view it in order to dig further on the site)

f) poorly designed style sheets that require excessively long CSS

g) use of lousy authoring tools that generate WAY too many HTML tags for formatting

h) frequent refreshing for no good reason [other than to cycle ads, right?]

i) on-line editing of documents via javascript. What MENSA CANDIDATE thought THAT one up, huh?

Yes I blame the CONTENT MAKERS and _NOT_ the ISPs so much. If they'd JUST assume that YOUR connection is a "minimal acceptable performance" connection, TO WHICH they target their site's bandwidth requirement so that it has acceptable performance on YOUR machine over YOUR connection then MAYBE this wouldn't be a problem.

But they don't. They assume "infinite bandwidth" and "of COURSE you'll download all of this shi supporting content and advertising just to view our web site!" even if 'relevant content' is less than ONE TENTH of the bandwidth!

(and that goes double for phones entering restricted bandwidth mode because, overage, because, all that "supporting content")

NY court slaps down Facebook's attempt to keep accounts secret from search warrants

Re: Does not compute...

FYI - depending on the rules of that particular court, you may be able to OBJECT to the discovery request that prompted the warrant, but you still have to comply with orders from the judge. So challenging the warrant is kinda limited in a way, but you could still object to it [then be denied, appeal, get denied again, etc.]

IANAL but I've had a small amount of experience dealing with bogus discovery requests

It's not just Elon building bridges to the brain: The Internet of Things is coming to a head

Ghost in the Shell

obligatory reference. 'cyber brain implants' etc.

on a related note, if the brain is like a quantum computer, we're gonna need to be able to manage more than just a few qubits to scale up to a brain interface...

Pong, anyone? How about Pong on a vintage oscilloscope?

Re: Kudos for the effort....

you have to REALLY want to do it "that way" to put in that kind of effort.

It reminds me of a binary "computer" my 3rd grade teacher's son built in the 1960's (ca 1968), using discrete components. It could add 2 binary numbers, had light bulbs to indicate the binary result, and switches to enter the numbers. I was confused by difficulty of the process of entering the numbers, like "I have to do MORE math just to enter the values I'm adding, than the actual calculation". Oh, and it could SUBTRACT, too.

Now that I think of it, he must've had a lot of work to do, building all of those gates and half-adders out of discrete components...

(but there might've been RTL gates available back then, not like that would really be that much easier)

It's 30 years ago: IBM's final battle with reality

Re: OS/2 and PS/2 Memories

Back in the 90's, a few months before the release of Windows 3.0, I took an OS/2 presentation manager programming class at the local (night school) city college. Got an 'A'. Only 6 students survived to complete the class, and the room was packed on day 1 when I thankfully had my add slip signed by the prof... [and we had "the PS/2 machines" in the lab to ourselves, since they were the only ones that could run OS/2].

And I really _LIKED_ OS/2 PM. I was able to format a diskette while doing OTHER THINGS, kinda cool because DOS could _NEVER_ do that! Version 1.2 was nice looking, too, 3D SKEUOMORPHIC just like Windows 3.0 would soon become!

But when i tried to BUY it, I ran into NOTHING but brick walls. It was like "get a PS/2, or wait forever for OEMs to get it 'ported' to THEIR machines". Bleah.

THAT is what killed it. NOT making it available for CLONES. When 'Warp' finally released, it was too little, too late.

But the best part of OS/2 was it's API naming, which follows the MORE SENSIBLE object-verb naming, rather than verb-object. So in Windows, it's "CreateWindow". In OS/2, it's "WindowCreate". And wouldn't you know it, when you read the DOCUMENTATION all of the things that work with WINDOWS are in the SAME PART OF THE MANUAL!

Damn, that was nice! OK I have hard-copy manuals for OS/2 1.2 still laying about somewhere... and corresponding hard-copy Windows 3.0 manuals that I had to thumb back-forth with all the time. Old school, yeah. HARDCOPY manuals. And actual message loops (not toolkits nor ".Not" garbage).

Dell warns PC slowdown threatens transition to infrastructure sales

"The WOW! factor for now moved to mobes, although even there it's showing signs of exhaustion"

no longer "new, shiny!" yeah

"will be replaced with less expensive model, still able to run the required software."

and power users seeking out OEM and "re-built computer" versions of Win 7, rather than Win-10-nic. You can still find Win7 machines out there. "Reconditioned" no doubt. Different license. "A Loophole" maybe.

I still want Dell to sell more Linux laptops. They'd do EXTREMELY well if they put some REAL effort into it, and gave a DISCOUNT for NOT having Win-10-nic shipped with it. I wish I could "educate" them. Anyone got a clue-by-four? heh heh heh

Re: Dell make reliable, cheap desktop and laptop PCs. However.

"It used to be the case that new versions of Windows drove PC sales. However that died with everything after Windows 7."

I love it when people get this right!

I'd like to add a combination of Moore's Law no longer causing next year's model to be 30-50% faster [by actual user perception, not by number of transistors per nanometer or whatever]. When the new model is perceived to be BETTER, people are inclined to buy it.

But of course, Micro-shaft has made Windows "Ape" and Win-10-nic *WORSE* than their predecessors, and the consumers are onto them.

Yeah I like my re-conditioned older model windows 7 machine, dedicated to doing Quickbooks and taxes and other "windows things", purchased for about $150 a year ago, with Windows 7 _deliberately_ pre-installed, just fine thanks, and won't be replacing it at any time, nor DOWNgrading to "Ape" or Win-10-nic.

HOWEVER - I would be VERY happy if I could get a Dell laptop with Mint Linux or [better still] FreeBSD 11 pre-installed on it! I'd pay money for THAT.

And so would others, too, if they recognized the *AWESOME*.

Dell: you want PC business to pick back up? Build some medium-to-high-end laptops with MINT LINUX on them, and ADVERTISE IT! Stop paying the "Micro-shaft tax" and ship WHATEVER OS YOU WANT. Micro-shaft is _NOT_ your friend. Hitching your wagon to THAT star will KILL your business. They are your COMPETITORS now. You should go ELSEWHERE for your operating systems.

/me debating Tux or Thumb-up icon. sticking with thumb-up.

As Trump signs away Americans' digital privacy, it's time to bring out the BS detector

I'm not convinced it's BULLSHIT yet

not 'BULLSHIT' yet, i.e. the idea that the FTC already has protections in place for BASIC privacy. Like banks, credit cards, and merchants, for example. They're the ones that are supposed to be making THOSE kinds of rules.

The FCC rules were more restrictive, for sure, but didn't apply to Facebook, Google, etc.. It was also a serious OVERSTEPPING OF AUTHORITY, which is why I am glad it's GONE. It's _NOT_ the business of the FCC to suddenly re-classify the internet as "something else" and REGULATE CONTENT and its usage.

But the next phase might just be to MAKE IT RIGHT, by having the FTC put the ISPs under the SAME privacy and data protection rules that financial institutions already are, regarding "the things we access". Same with Face-b[itch,ook] and Google, for servers located in the USA at any rate. A simple privacy policy [that's enforced] and an opt-out will do (just like my bank has to honor). FTC, yeah.

And as long as there are no 'man in the middle' attacks going on, I think https might be sufficient to protect you the rest of the way. Just make sure you don't use a "poisoned" DNS (from your ISP) that begs you to install new certs... it adds credibility to using google's free DNS service, or your own bind implementation.

Alabama man gets electrocuted after sleeping with iPhone

I was hoping for more snarky comedy

maybe I should just come back tomorrow...

phone != teddy bear (don't sleep with it)

/me imagines some lawsuit because the instructions did not say that

Ubuntu 17.04 beta FACT: It's what's on the inside that matters, not looks

"You learn something new every day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(philosophy)"

yeah, about that... kinda disturbing, but the software is still good. Except 'Unity'. Which stinks on ice.

Re: *ubuntu

just install Mate (apt-get install mate-desktop as I recall) and you'll be fine. That's what I've been doing for any Ubu install I need to do. Getting to a shell is cumbersome in Unity, but you can always mash 'enter' during the grub boot and use a recovery console...

Head of US military kit-testing slams F-35, says it's scarcely fit to fly

Re: $ 391,000,000,000

"a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

BOOO! mega-thumbs-down for sounding like a HIPPY.

Perhaps this needs a leitmotif consisting of "Hearts And Flowers" played on the world's smallest violin, coupled with a slight change to the lyrics: "Oh, my heart, it bleeds, for you! I am such a sucker, for emotional, manipulation!" etc.

Seriously, when you PAY PEOPLE to STAY POOR, you PURCHASE POVERTY. At least, spending "that kind of money", we're getting some AIRPLANES.

Don't forget we existing in a dangerous world, which is ultimately governed by the aggressive use of force. We don't have 'Atilla the Hun' and 'Ivan the Terrible' and other infamous marauders going around raping and pillaging because we have STRONG MILITARY FORCES to stop them.

And, NOT maintaining a military edge on our potential enemies would only allow THEM to advance past us and then NUKE us until we glow (and shoot us in the dark). I don't want Iran, N. Korea, ISIS, or any other potential force of evil, to do this to any of us, thanks.

Re: and then some...... need to have 2 helmets with you.....

"removing one of the two installed visors"

spare visor? OK maybe it needs one of 2 new features instead:

a) a liquid crystal that forms a polarizing filter when electricity is applied;

b) a 'varilux' lense, similar to eyeglasses, that automatically transitions from light to dark

and maybe

c) an easily snapped-on replacement stored in the ejector seat, behind the pilot's head (in case of damage)

a reasonable solution to this shouldn't be too hard, yeah.

(or keep a set of sunglasses in a storage pookah on the dashboard)

Re: Phew, bullet dodged.

USMC also flies Osprey (tilt rotor) which had a LOT of problems early on. People died in accidents, etc. And now it's working. So maybe an example for F35, to work with it for a while, until the bugs are squashed? [let's hope nobody dies, though]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_V-22_Osprey

well, the Osprey IS a kind of helicopter. Helicopters are just unstable (particularly during takeoff and landing). I've heard that flying a helicopter is like juggling while riding a unicycle.

Actually German WWII "over engineered war machine" lesson is more about numbers vs high tech solution. Sure, the kill ratio would have been better for a Messerschmidt vs Allied plane (they had fuel-injected engines, as an example) but the Allied designs were cheaper to build in mass quantity. So while the German tech was better, they couldn't build them fast enough to maintain that advantage.

At the same time, Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority" is really about completely replacing the old, reliable tech with new, unproven tech, for the sake of doing so, and for no other good reason. THAT danger is real, if the "military industrial complex" gets its way.

The obvious solution to the F35 problem is to NOT put all your eggs in the F-35 basket, but keep some older (proven) designs around, and active, and well maintained, etc.. [and continue development of these airframes for upgrades and fixes]. THEN, work with the F35 long enough to get the bugs out, do a complete re-design as "something else", or re-define its role more consistently with its design [and build something else to fill in the mission gaps]. So apply lipstick to the "oinky" end (as someone else recently posting to an El Reg forum might say).

Now, if some mensa-candidate dim-bulb were to replace EVERY U.S. (or U.K.) military aircraft with an F35, YES, you would be correct to say "It will pay dearly for it one day".

[hopefully THAT never happens]

Re: There have been planes like this before.

"Just think of the compromises needed on a multi-role aircraft between the attributes needed for low level versus high altitude, dogfight versus strike, stand-off versus close support, speed versus strength, endurance versus performance, carrier versus land ops, SVTOL versus runways, stealth versus aerodynamics and control...."

there is a Russian-developed analysis method known as 'Triz' that attempts to "resolve contradictions" such as those. Worthy of mention.

Yes, it may be impossible to really "do it right", but I think they're optimistic about making it "good enough". Who knows, with enough tweeking, a bit of luck, and good feedback from the military pilots, they can upgrade this thing into a workable airframe. But yeah, it does NOT seem to be ready for prime time at the moment.

Still I'd favor deploying a percentage of aircraft using F35, so long as the older ones aren't retired (until it's proved). And let's keep the updates/upgrades coming for A10, F22, and maybe even F18 while we're at it. The B-52 got a LOT of usage for half a century, and so if it works, why not keep using it?

(obligatory reference to Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority" and WW2 aircraft, allied vs axis, and who won the war [and why])

Re: Oh wonderful

"We need a 'Farages Law' no matter what the subject is being spoken about someone will always drag it to Brexit."

or U.S. president, or any political person/issue in general, or 'popular target of the moment', or ...

As for the F35, at least it seems that the lipstick is being applied to the 'end that goes "oink"'. The "contradictions" of stealth vs vertical take-off vs supersonic operability still haven't been resolved. it's almost as if an "all in one" solution really isn't possible, yet they're doing it _ANYWAY_.

SpaceX wows world with a ho-hum launch of a reused rocket, landing it on a tiny boring barge

Re: Amazing

..."fly-back airbreathers"

Cannot, yet, get to the altitudes nor speeds required for anything that requires orbital speeds.

True, but getting part-way there might be a nice compromise, like Virgin did with theirs. 'Stage zero' air-breathing boosters up to about 100k feet...

WONTFIX: No patch for Windows Server 2003 IIS critical bug – Microsoft

Re: I did

Debian: good choice!

(not "too bleeding edge", well-tested packages in the stable branch, lots of community support, easy to use packaging system)

one of my favorite distros

Re: "not because of any technical reason"

"If budget is a concern, use Linux."

Assuming you mean licensing and not TCO

THAT myth again? *facepalm*

Re: "not because of any technical reason"

"Modern windows does have better protections than 2003."

how about "Linux has WAY better security than ANY windows.". Then do a one-time conversion to LAMP, and save money over time with maintenance, security, licenses, etc..

(post edit, should've already credited you for mentioning Linux)

Y'know CSS was to kill off HTML table layout? Well, second time's a charm: Meet CSS Grid

Re: <table>

"IMVHO, using tables for tabular data like in that article is totally fine, but using it to lay stuff out is not. What are your thoughts?"

it would depend on a lot. A simple way to center a quote, for example might be like this:

blah blah blah textᐸbrᐳ

ᐸtable align=center width="95%"ᐳᐸtrᐳᐸtdᐳ

ᐸbᐳblah blah blah quoted areaᐸ/bᐳ

ᐸ/tdᐳᐸ/trᐳᐸ/tableᐳ

blah blah continuing on

(I used 'ᐳ' for '>', 'ᐸ' for '<' to avoid HTML filtering, re-interpretation, whatever)

All of that could be typed in with a regular text editor, no special authoring tools, by someone with a basic knowledge of HTML and formatting.

simple, fast, effective, LOW BANDWIDTH. what more do you need?

Re: Formatted email messages

However, on the subject of HTML emails, I'm just going to leave this thing I've noticed happening amongst some of my clients here.

(re: link) good article on e-mails. I particularly like the section that shows the *WRONG*-ness of top-posting. I included the link in my quote for reference.

I believe HTML e-mail to be evil. It is MOSTLY a source of infections, phishing scams, unwanted bandwidth waste, crufty chain letters [with ads at the bottom], lame humor, spamming, and unnecessary irritation. Any e-mail that says "you must view this in HTML to see the content" gets an automatic 'mark as spam' or deletion from me. I only view e-mail in plain text. It's part of "safe surfing", too.

In my corporation, it would be a company policy to ONLY sent plain text, NEVER top post, and configure all e-mail clients to view/compose in plain text only. And it would probably save space on the mail server, bandwidth on the intarwebs, and time dealing with interoffice communication.

"So web developers will *still* be having to write 2 sets of code, one for Microslow browsers and one for the rest."

an old standard, put a small banner at the top "this site looks best in Firefox or Chrome or Safari" with links to the appopriate packages. SHAME Micro-shaft into doing the right thing.

Re: Finally!

I use table for general formatting a lot of times. it's more convenient and renders consistently everywhere I look. Let's hope 'table' doesn't get dropped from the HTML spec as a result of a CSS alternative. That would be like dropping 'C' as a programming language in favor of C-pound or Objective C... no, wait.

Apple Store in Pennsylvania hit with discrimination complaint

"If it sounds stupid when you do that, it's probably racist."

your definition for racism appears to have a broad scope. no WONDER so many people are tired of claims like THIS one. SJW indeed.

Re: There's your problem...

yeah, religion doesn't require proof (therefore it's religion). but I doubt the complainant's religion had ANYTHING to do with how Apple treated him, except 'religious discrimination' claims. Perhaps I should take up daily meditation on my navel and claim my religion requires me to do this 5 minutes out of every hour, and when it disrupts the work day and I'm fired, sue and claim that my religion is being "discriminated"...

(or join a religion that legitimately uses drugs, and come to work stoned all the time - same idea)

nearly all of the religious people I know are decent human beings that don't act like ass-hats.

I've never known an 'Adventist'. I think they go to church on saturdays. I don't know of anything else they do that's particularly weird, although David Koresh was an Adventist of sorts.

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

Re: Better diversity

the term 'guest' is often used in the hotel industry, as an example. it's a way of emphasizing that you'd treat a customer the way you'd treat a guest in your home, assuming you're gracious and a decent host.

I suspect Apple is innocent here. If any actual discrimination against customers were happening, you'd think a company like Apple would be on it like hyenas. Or vultures. Same idea.

I suspect the claim is being tried in the public because it has no real evidence behind it.

Reg now behind invisible HTML5 Bitcoin paywall

Re: Obvious

fixed: "A plugin is required to view this content"

/me self-slaps and grabs coat

Re: Disappointed in El Reg

"And do you know what it costs to file a patent?"

It's under $1000 last I priced it, if you can manage your own paperwork and patent search and are filing as an individual, not a corporation. Yeah 'paper bag' needs to be re-invented, especially in Cali-fornicate-you. Nice Job!

/me needs to re-invent "wheel" next

"I imagine bit coin mining has got to the point where it probably isn't worth the effort"

let's look for space aliens instead...

Re: Saturday

I almost fell for it. then I saw the date on the comments and I'm like "o...k..." and I bothered to look at the links. Suffice it to say that the patent link was EQUALLY brilliant, and the other ones, amusing at the least.

Well done El Reg, it made me smile.

Good Guy Comcast: We're not going to sell your data, trust us

FTC is supposed to protect privacy

consumer privacy is SUPPOSED to be the jurisdiction of the FTC. Is everyone ignoring that?

I get regular (annual) statements from banks and credit card companies regarding my privacy rights and how to "opt out" of various kinds of 'information sharing'. If existing FTC regs do not ALREADY apply to computers and networks (and especially MICROSOFT GOOGLE FACEBOOK and ISPs), then they SHOULD.

The FCC overreached quite a bit under Obaka. THIS recently passed legislation is just putting the FCC back in its place.

Yee-hacked! Fired Texan sysadmin goes rogue, trashes boot business

Re: Amateur...

"If you're good enough to set that up, you won't be sacked."

Or, you'll be called in after the time-bomb detonates, to help with the forensics and cleanup. At Month:day or week:hour ratio consulting rates, of course! And, if you play your cards right, they'll not only be HAPPY to sign the checks, they'll call you in periodically for other things, too.

Re: Properly designed security

role-based access... "someone" still needs to set that up. They fire "that guy" and he retaliates. now what?

Re: AD...

"He could easily have dumped the entire user database and have access to every single account."

right, and STILL have low-level access via some obscure user account, which [with the right tools] can get you admin access, depending on installed patches and running software, or a carefully installed back door (that would do it for sure). He ALREADY added a secret login with admin privs, so why wouldn't he put in a back door (or two) as well? [this is a good reason for "get new computer, re-build from scratch" to fix this]

To add back doors, you could re-compile system stuff from modified source, or install your own dummy applications that run the real ones, or tack on 'virus-like' extensions to various programs that run in the context of 'root' or 'system' or 'administrator' and/or just install something that LOOKS like it belongs there, even signing it with your own certs [when needed] that you install [easy to do] when THAT kind of thing is necessary, yotta yotta yotta. Nothing new under the sun. These things are _EASY_ to do... which is why senior admins and/or managers need to watch out for that kind of crap.

(but a lazy crooked sysadmin would probably install some "toolz" purchased off the darknet)

"As for the Muppet who did it, good luck in your new career, since nobody will touch you for IT roles now."

well after 10 years in the Iron Bar hotel, he'll be 50-something and recently paroled, 10 years out of touch with the industry (no 'recent experience' in anything), and didn't even do anything famous/brilliant enough to get a consulting gig (to fight off other wanna-be hackers). So yeah. He's pretty much UNEMPLOYABLE in the IT field. And if his firing was for a really really good reason (like incompetence), there's that, too.

new hardware + new software is probably EASIER than cleaning the mess up, too. Overall cost (when you include time and number of people involved) very well could be WAY cheaper than the alternative. No hidden back doors, either.

Trump sets sights on net neutrality

Re: What happens when the 1% has all the money?

I think you are assuming that rich people aren't going to buy things with their money, that they fill a vault and dive into it like Scrooge McDuck or something. Rich people BUY THINGS and HIRE PEOPLE, and boost the economy and probably help YOU to keep your job. After all, you don't go to a POOR PERSON when you're looking for work or need investors for your company.

obligatory negative comment about rich asshats like George Soros who (unlike most rich people) step on other people to get ahead [like currency manipulation], and use their ill-gotten gains for evil purposes [like paid demonstrators/rioters and moveon.org].

(didn't Soros contribute heavily to Mrs. Clinton? Isn't he _WORSE_ than The Russians? And what about the Clinton foundation these days? Just sayin')