* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

AI and robots? Will someone think of the jobs, says HPE CEO Whitman

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: People don't need jobs...

you forgot the 'joke' tag

people don't need a 'universal basic income'. We'd just be universally MISERABLE.

The basic problem is that, for menial jobs, people are TOO EXPENSIVE. Robots are cheaper.

There used to be rooms full of people adding numbers in banks. They were called "calculators". Not so much any more. Would YOU want THAT job? I wouldn't!

As the minimum wage is LEGISLATIVELY increased, and "benefits" MANDATED, companies discover that it's TOO EXPENSIVE to hire people to do 'certain jobs'. The only alternative, if the job can't be shipped to a place where it's "affordable" again, is to have a ROBOT do the work.

And teenagers can't find work, because it's TOO EXPENSIVE to hire an inexperienced person to do ANYTHING any more, including BURGER FLIPPING.

A job that COSTS MORE than it is worth will NO LONGER EXIST. If it COSTS LESS to build a robot to do something, that's what will happen.

Feelings and political pontification won't change economic REALITY.

Just give up: 123456 is still the world's most popular password

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

According to the movie 'Hackers'...

According to the movie 'Hackers' the top 5 passwords are:

love

money

sex

secret

and, of course 'god' - don't forget 'god'! System admins LOVE to use 'god'!

heh

ThePlague: Will her holiness please change her password?

(ok maybe not an EXACT quote but that's what I remembered)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Just get a password manager..

"KeePass will work with a local file, etc, as it's not provided as a "cloud" service."

I like KeePass. It has POSIX versions as well as Windows. You can even share the SAME key file between platforms. I do.

And if you DID store it on the cloud, anyone wanting access would need to crack your master passPHRASE. It could be anything. Anything at all, that you easily remember. A line from your favorite movie, book, or poem. Something only YOU would consider using. And typing 40+ characters can be a little irritating with no visual feedback on the character you typed, but after you've done it enough [and infrequently so] it should become relatively simple. Except for 4" screens, of course...

Flight 666 lands safely in HEL on Friday the 13th

bombastic bob Silver badge
Joke

Re: Hmm...

those are all REAL phobias... not like the kinds of labels that are thrown about way too often these days [simply for disagreeing with 'whomever'].

As for the plane, I heard it from a "reliable source" [aka fake news] that the pilot carried a rabbit's foot that had been soaked in holy water for 7 days, with a touch of garlic. And before departure, the entire crew bounced on one foot while chanting "Waa Tanaa Siam!". And they sacrificed a chicken as well, by ordering takeout from the local KFC.

This flight, of course, was simultaneously 'blessed' by a recital of that famous poem, "I am Sofa King" "We Todd Ed"

Windows 10 Anniversary Update crushed exploits without need of patches

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Why?

"You have to wonder why after 30+ years it is still has vulnerabilities that need patching."

explained in Arthur C. Clarke's "superiroity" I'd think...

Also, you have to have "new, shiny" and "the next generation doing it THEIR way, this time!:"

Couple that with market-hype, 'feel' instead of 'think', and "trying to take over the world", and you end up with the CLUSTER-BLANK known as Win-10-nic!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Why is font rendering in the kernel in the first place?

"And, from what I read about Linux, more than ever seems to be going into that kernel too."

no, just systemd and wayland. I'm sticking with FreeBSD.

As for M-shaft "getting it right this time" - a stopped clock is right TWICE a DAY, right?

Happy birthday: Jimbo Wales' sweet 16 Wikipedia fails

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

read it with a grain of salt and brain engaged

well, considering ANYBODY can say/claim basically ANYTHING on Wikipedia, it's both useful and untrustworthy at the same time.

I think articles on technical stuff (like internet protocols, higher mathematics, electronics engineering) or non-controversial things (like TV episode summaries and info on your favorite anime) are pretty good on Wikipedia, and a great source of information.

That being said, don't look for ANY accuracy where agendas might be held by one or more people. And if you post ANYTHING that goes against the left, you'll see LOTS of revenge edits within hours. yeah, I think some people LIVE for that. So no talking about supply side economics, or natural cycles in climate data, or the inherent failures of 'The New Deal' or socialized "anything" without MASSIVE edits removing as much of your content as possible, while simultaneously attempting to make you look like a fool for posting something NOT in agreement with THEM.

These 'editors' [who apparently don't do anything else] seem to have WAY too much time, and WAY too much power. I wonder if someone is PAYING them to do that...

Anyway, useful for SOME things, not so much for others.

FCC's Wheeler gives passionate defense of net neutrality rules

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: "going forward"... over a cliff!

"Locally we have COX with 70-100Mbs service at $80/month) or AT&T with 1.2Mbs service for $60/month - I guess that's "choice" to you?"

I think you'll find that there are other (DSL, 4G, etc.) alternatives already, each with their own disadvantages as well as advantages. I don't have nearly that kind of bandwidth, but if I wanted to get cable for business (rather than DSL) it would cost considerably more. What they do NOT do (on my existing connection) is filter things, so I can run a servers on it, etc. and of course I pay extra for the fixed IP address that goes with it.

The point is, you have choices. And you could STILL create your OWN ISP if you wanted. If I had unlimited cash, I could have a mega-bandwidth fiber line run to my house, for example.

In any case, MY point is MOSTLY about getting gummint out of the way. If they want to regulate ANYTHING, they could do what they did for long distance providers for phone service, i.e. require that the cable companies 'sell bandwidth' to competitors to prevent service monopolies. THAT would be an improvement, for sure! [this is, to some extent, what has already been done for DSL, but I don't know of any specific instance where non-Cox providers can provide cable service over Cox's cables, either TV or internet or IP-phone or any OTHER service for that matter, as one example]

But THAT is NOT what they (the FCC) actually DID in THIS case, now is it? I have never been happy with the FCC's attempt at 'net neutrality', and it's really too much to pick over the details on it. But, I'll be VERY happy to see it GONE, and replaced with something better, starting with a level playing field for PROVIDERS to sell service to you, and not the actual CONTENT.

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

"going forward"... over a cliff!

As far as I'm concerned, the FCC has _NO_ business regulating ANYTHING on the internet that's related to content. That includes how ISPs process packets. As long as there's choice from who your ISP is and how much filtering or prioritizing goes on, it shouldn't become a problem. If it does, _THEN_ regulators can step in and do something about it. But _NOT_ before.

So these lefty-liberal "control freak" types can just GO POUND SAND. *THEY* lost the election, *THEY* need to shut the *BLANK* up and watch their legacies DIE. That includes OBAKA-care, as well as the FAIL from the FCC that pretends to be "net neutrality". To quote Lcdr Warf, when he replied to Q's griping about being human: "TOO! BAD!!!"

Hey lefties: Don't let the door hit you in the ARSE on the way out, k?

now if only we could get MICRO-SHAFT to turn THEIR barge around, before it goes over the falls or hits the rocks [whichever]. same *kinds* of thinking behind Win-10-nic and 'Ape' I bet!

Ex-Autonomy CFO pleads not guilty to charges he inflated the company's value

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

I've seen it before, overvalue prior to buyout

I've seen it before, overvaluing a company so that the buyer ends up being shafted with a bunch of worthless inventory, but the board members all get their 'golden parachutes'. meanwhile, most (or all) of the staff gets laid off.

One of the trickiest methods is to overvalue excess and obsolete parts, stuff you KNOW you're going to have to sell for pennies on the dollar to a scrap dealer, but it's still in the warehouse. Don't show the buyer that the _necessary_ Rev B changes will not use those parts at ALL, but instead present the "facts" that Rev A's schematic and BOM will consume them all using the forecast information you provided them to show how worth-while your company is, blah blah blah.

If the parts being scrapped happen to be _expensive_, and totally worthless as scrap, you've just grossly overvalued your company! Congratulations, you sir get a 'golden parachute', inflated stock value on purchase, and a nice cash prize for cashed in stock options!

That's kinda how it works. And since you're misrepresenting facts, it's just, plain, fraud when it happens. AND, I bet it happens *ALL* the time!

ISC squishes BIND packet-of-death bugs

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: BIND + patches = a day ending in 'y'.

"A public service announcement from the Ministry of Redundancy and Reiteration."

And recursion. By the way, I bet turning THAT off will fix it!

Playpen child sex abuse archive admin gets 20 years in the Big House

bombastic bob Silver badge
WTF?

Re: Punishment fits the crime?

"You seem to be insinuating"

hold your horses, there, snowflake, can't you see it was a joke?

[_I_ thought it was UPROARIOUSLY funny!]

political correctness *SUCKS*, every time it's tried. And so will *THAT* guy (aka 'the perp'), for 20 years in prison, whether he enjoys it or not...

/me goes off and plays that 'Bob and Tom' song, 'Prison Bitch' in his honor

Trump's cyber-guru Giuliani runs ancient 'easily hackable website'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

The media as a clue-bat

well, isn't it the media's JOB to point out discrepancies? Seems that the list of vulnerabilities is kinda like a CLUE-BAT. It also seems they haven't been paying attention to their web server for a while.

Being FreeBSD, it has some inherent security advantages, even being 6.x. Being old, it would be more difficult to craft a successful crack using buffer overruns or SQL injection. [this doesn't mean someone has not ALREADY done it].

And if the "open SSH port" doesn't allow root logins (default for FreeBSD since 'forever'), and uses proper authentication methods, it shouldn't matter much. [in some Linux distros I've had to MANUALLY shut off root ssh logins so yeah, I always check]

The rest of the problems are fixable by updating the OS and the packages they run.

Shouldn't be too hard to fix. And it's FreeBSD. That gives it a slight advantage security-wise. Linux-specific cracks won't work, and if it wasn't configured by an IDIOT, it should be reasonably secure 'out of the box'. Additionally, if the ssh logins all have 'guest' level access, you'd have to su to a 'wheel' group user before attempting to crack the root password. It's an extra layer, yeah.

And for all we know, all of that is running in a JAIL. Yeah. It'd be fun to find out for certain.

And... do you think MAYBE it might be a HONEYPOT? Just a thought... [or if not, it SHOULD be]

(Just a bit of 'benefit of the doubt' for Giuliani's company - after all, it IS running FreeBSD!)

Now that's a Blue Screen of Death: Windows 10 told me to jump off a cliff

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Typical MS

"I'll be fantasizing about giving whoever wrote that crap a little nudge."

Or quietly sneak up behind and say "BOO!"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

Re: Methinks MSFT (and some here) are taking this too seriously.

"It's a beautiful photo. It's an inspiring quote."

a normal person might think so. I prefer 'nauseatingly sappy quote' but that's just me.

Besides, the problem here is that Micro-shaft LIVES by the 'political correctness', so they shall also DIE by the 'political correctness'.

I take the opposite tack: I *LAMPOON* political correctness, and those who are so sensitive (i.e. 'snowflakes') that all of this crap OFFENDS them. Personally, if they HAD intended suicide as the message, I'd have laughed my ass off and offered them a BEER.

"Nice de-motivational"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: If you're running Windows 10...

"Yes it was a highly complex 2 button mouse, with wait for it, a scroll wheel. I know crazy."

I use one of those with FreeBSD, Linux, windows... it's an ancient "Microsoft Mouse" with a USB-to-PS2 adaptor, going into a KVM. NEVER had any problems with USB mice either, in Linux or FreeBSD. I got it over a decade ago, once the price of optical mice dropped sufficiently enough. Before that I'd gone through more than enough serial and PS2 mice that had mini-track-balls in them.

Mouse handling is usually through Xorg drivers anyway, which are commonly used across all of the POSIX systems. I've never seen an issue with these. USB mice are exceptionally well supported. I can even plug in a Wacom pad [which has mouse, pen, etc.] and all of the normal mouse functions are all there. Of course, it needs some kind of driver for the REST of the features [extra buttons] but the fact that it "works" without the OS griping at me is a plus.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

"I have to say, some of the pictures they've used have been very nice."

I'd prefer porn. Or anime screenshots with moe girls in it [just to tweek the moralists]. But last I checked you couldn't assign your own graphics [or get rid of the damn ads]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Maybe the tablet, sorry, "surface" was feeling depressed

"You mean the Surfaces is called Marvin?"

That explains the DE-motivational message

42

Dieselgate: VW pleads guilty, will cough up $4.3bn, throws 6 staff under its cheatware bus

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Urrm:

"This difference in legal action can only be explained by Goldman Sachs and their Wallstreet comrades, owning the US, using the opportunity to pick on one of the few globally successful companies that is not under their control."

no, I don't think so.

a) GM probably gave money to DEMO-RAT POLITICIANS, gaining them favor. VW can't really do that.

b) GM only killed PEOPLE. VW was *RAPING* *THE* *ENVIRONMENT*, which as we all know, is MORE IMPORTANT than people's lives [according to THE LEFT, anyway]

And of course, VW's 'hack/cheat' to pass the emissions test, albeit VERY clever, pissed the regulators off, like in "HOW DARE YOU" pissed off. So there's a bit of THAT in there, too.

So aside from the environment being GOD in the eyes of the left, or at least a 'means to an end' to CONTROL EVERYONE'S LIVES, it's DEFINITELY more important (to THEM) than people killed in car crashes due to defective equipment.

[seeing Trump's EPA will be a GLORIOUSLY REFRESHING change to what was becoming a hideous platform for the left's takeover of our lives, one back yard at a time]

Weaky-leaks: Furious fans roast Assange in web interview from hell

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: @ AndyS

"The harm Trump will do to the rest of the world"

etc.

Well, your misconceptions about Trump and his agenda are noted.

My opinion: hang on for the 'E' ticket ride, this is going to be FUN. I expect the UK, Japan, Korea, and other countries whose economies are at least loosely tied to the USA to either indirectly benefit from the ECONOMIC EXPLOSION (not 'implosion', what OBAKA was doing) and rapid growth that will remind everyone of the 1980's (and for the exact same reasons, too), or directly benefit from it.

"A rising tide lifts all boats" essentially.

6 months from now I think you'll see what I mean. But the lamestream media in the USA certainly won't acknowledge that. They'll go out of their way to find someone who was "hurt" by the OBAKA-"care" repeal, and try to make Trump look evil. Meanwhile, more people will have GOOD PAYING jobs, and economic boon in the USA will 'trickle out' to UK, Japan, Korea, Russia, maybe even China. And nobody (but agenda-driven extremists, or perhaps the mis-informed) will want to go back.

As for Assange, I say THANK YOU for releasing "all that". I used to have a low opinion of Wikileaks. Now it's not so bad. Getting the truth out there that NOBODY wants seen has a definite place in our society. And when the US media won't do it, we need something like Wikileaks to do it FOR us.

Oi, Mint 18.1! KEEP UP! Ubuntu LTS love breeds a laggard

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Perfect If they fix the scrollbars

I'm irritated by the 'fake scroller' scrollbars of Ubu 14 so hopefully it's not doing that [last I installed Mint, it wasn't]. Having to NOT grab the actual scroll knob, but something that flashes in your face, is beyond irritating. I only use that version because 'customer wanted it' and it's a build environment VM.

But I am encouraged that the screenshot didn't have 2D FLUGLY on it. Mint 18 Mate had a 2D FLUGLY theme picked by default, and it was DIFFICULT to find a more 3D skeuomorphic one. I eventually found a couple, but they were a little buggy with respect to colors. I worked around it.

Anyway, I *DESPISE* 2D FLATSO FLUGLY. So it's refreshing when it's NOT in a Linux distro (unless you explicitly WANT that, and so you can change it later)

Microsoft sued by staff traumatized by child sex abuse vids stashed on OneDrive accounts

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: For all you you screaming "Muh Privacy"

" ... and thus need to submit to the same sort of regulations."

like calling down a napalm strike on top of your own head because the enemies are all around you

it would have to be an act of desperation and last resort. let's do something different, first, before things degrade to that point. Like *NOT* *DOING* *BUSINESS* *WITH* *MICRO-SHAFT*.

Linux anyone?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

"Expect a rise in the storage of gross pictures, especially in cloud storage..."

YES!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: WANTED:Psychotic serial killers and/or 4chan regulars preferred.

That post was a crowning moment of awesome. hats off and thumbs up!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: What <i>the hell</i> are Microsoft doing going through our files?

"You take a few photos of your kids playing in the bath."

When you consider the *AGGRESSIVE* *NANNY* *STATE* aspect, this is highly realistic.

there are just TOO MANY out there, "Ninny Nannies", who are TOO WILLING to mind EVERYBODY ELSE'S BUSINESS, instead of LEAVING PEOPLE THE *FEEL* ALONE and letting US mind OUR own business, thank you very much.

Privacy is important. There are _OTHER_ (better) ways of catching criminals that do _NOT_ involve privacy invasion, *ESPECIALLY* by a 3rd party like MICRO-SHAFT.

I have considered doing something *LIKE* taking photos of 'troll dolls' in ways that might "trigger" their inspection of them, and then DELIBERATELY uploading them to a OneDrive directory, just to tweek them. but I'd have to spend time doing that, and I have better things to do...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Microsoft should probably pay out and move on

"The people who store these images should be bought to some kind of justice; not warned to encrypt the files..."

They probably won't encrypt anything. Usually crooks aren't very smart, which is why you find 'dumb crook' web sites and news bytes all over the place.

However, it's _ALSO_ not MICRO-SHAFT's job to be "world police".

/me hums "Micro-shaft... *FEEL* YEAH! Making the world a better place! Micro-shaft, *FEEL* YEAH!" ['Feel' is the new 'F' word]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: @palpy: Yup. Quite bullshitty.

"I run an Owncloud server for me and some friends. The server copies of the files are encrypted and I cannot see what is in there. that seems to be the default for everyone else other than microsoft. Why are they doing this?"

you make an extremely good point. And, by the way, thanks for doing things the _right_ way and protecting the users' privacy. [I have heard of other services that do this as well, such as on-line backup services]

They (Micro-shaft) are doing what they do because THEY CAN. And so they cannot be trusted. It's part of the POLITICS of MICRO-SHAFT. MSNBC is owned by them, after all. They tried to shove Win-10-nic up our backsides for a year, and AGGRESSIVELY so, complete with deceptive 'click the red x' behavior of GWX. None of this should come as a surprise. Once you understand how they think, it's simply appalling, and you wanna just face-palm all of the time in response.

At least, now, it's out in the open where anyone can read about it.

[It would not surprise me at ALL if the capability of rifling through everyone's on-line content was a part of their original plan/design for OneDrive. No surprise at ALL]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: @palpy

"That's the worst kind of bullshit appeal to emotion with no actual debate value."

good summary. I wasn't going to respond to it [trolling, straw-man, etc.]

Besides - people who would do such things, would know me and fear me. Heh.

If I had to do that job, I'd most likely become calloused to it, sorta like internet shock sites that just aren't shocking any more. It's not something I'd necessarily enjoy.

But the MORE DISTURBING part is the fact that they WERE going through things and looking at them! So, 'get a warrant' indeed. Let the COPS do that part, with judicial permission. It's THEIR job.

And I have no sympathy for people who wear their emotions on their sleeves, "feel" everything, and so on. That should be obvious. Natural selection would've "selected them out" back in the cave-days. Unfortunately, in the modern era, NEGATIVE genetics like *that* are being re-enforced by enriching them via wimpy-ass LAWSUITS. Idiocracy anyone? 'Nuff.

And sometimes you just have to admit that Patton was right. "Man up". PTSD is real, but a swift kick in the ass should be a major part of the therapy.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

poor widdle snowflakes... wait, what?

On one hand, "oh my hear it bleeds for you" to the tune of 'hearts and flowers' on the world's smallest violin, for those poor widdle snowflakes who had to view illegal pr0n in order to discover that it was, well, illegal pr0n.

On the other hand, as the previous poster so wittily pointed out, MICRO-SHAFT! IS! APPARENTLY! RIFLING! THROUGH! OUR! CLOUD! FILES! looking for things...

what's NEXT on their list o' things to report, MEDIA PIRACY? Like someone who gets a takedown notice because of an unrelated youtube video in which a song is playing in the background on a TV or radio, barely audible, but just happens to be 'there' while the video is being recorded. Yes, I've seen this.

MICRO-SHAFT: It's called *PRIVACY*, and you need to STOP INVADING IT!

Anti-smut law dubs PCs, phones 'pornographic vendor machines', demands internet filters

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

"Though by US conservative standards"

(etc.)

no, this kind of thing wouldn't be 'conservative' at all. "Right-wing activist" yes. "Moral crusader" yes. 'Conservative' means, in one sense, NOT being 'radical' like that. FYI.

please don't confuse right-wing activism with conservatism. k-thx.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: How would such a filter even work?

"Or do the legislators want to vet all the smut sites personally."

most likely, even those with the greatest moral outrage. [closet pervs with public outrage]

No doubt the standard would be based on "feelings" of a handful of moral crusaders.

There is NOTHING WORSE from a gummint than having laws based ENTIRELY on someone's "feelings" via "subjective" standards, like a tin-horn dictator running everything, outlawing things like chewing gum merely because he doesn't like it, etc.. Such subjective standards are the best way to cause a 'chilling tension', people always looking over one shoulder to see if the 'secret police' are watching. And the need for 'secret police'. And 'brown-shirt' neighbors. Yeah.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Now THAT is worth hacking

"All you do is get a sufficiently large number of people to claim that the local government websites are actually pornographic (in an extremely deviant manner)"

not much of a 'stretch' considering how gummint is *ALWAYS* trying to SCREW the citizenry, and in the case of politicians like Mr. Clinton, it's a bit more literal.

I have a name for the intarweb filter: "bendover.sys" <-- requires Win-10-nic

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Linux and DD-WRT

"Who is the manufacturer who is required to provide the filter?"

I bet they'll just outlaw anything other than "Windows for Wussies" (encumbered Win-10-nic) and expect everyone to just comply.

And, maybe they'll require ISPs to "filter" any downloads of ISO or IMG files for non-Windows operating systems as "potential pr0n" or something

I suppose you could have a few people illegally distributing non-compliant ISO and IMG files. Add more fun, pre-load them with *PR0N* in the form of wallpapers and screen savers. And a whole lot of anime screenshots, too (particularly furo scenes). Yum!

Their 'final solution':

"Wait... what's that 451 message doing on freebsd.org? I can't access the site any more!"

a sad day indeed, when you must manually configure Tor to go to the darknet to get an update for Firefox (or a non-windows OS) that does NOT include the pr0n filter...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Good luck with that one.

"I can already see the residents driving over state lines to purchase their devices elsewhere that doesn't have such a boneheaded bullshit policy."

hopefully, THAT reality will just kill it to death, deader than hell [as it ought to be]

New Windows 10 privacy controls: Just a little snooping – or the max

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

not got much spam in it

"Spam eggs sausage and Spam - that's not got much Spam in it!"

"I don't want ANY Spam!"

and I don't want ANY spying.

It's now 2017, and your Windows PC can still be pwned by a Word file

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Meanwhile, Adobe is updating blah de fucking blah

I stopped doing *anything* flash when gnash wouldn't play with the latest unnecessary change to the file format. I don't need Adobe's spyware running on a BSD or Linux box, after all! Fortunately, HTML5 has taken care of that. Now, why IS anyone using flash these days?

FBI let alleged pedo walk free rather than explain how they snared him

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Scumbag Olympics...

"Isn't it better to prevent a crime than to punish someone who committed it?"

every cop would LOVE to catch criminals in the act. unfortunately, MOST of the time, all they can do is investigate (i.e. draw a chalk-line) and arrest, and THEN hand the evidence to prosecution to convict and incarcerate. Yeah not a lot of 'caught in the act' going on, here.

this is where the concept of "citizen's arrest", as well as reporting crimes [identifying yourself so you can be called as a witness] can be extremely helpful. And 'concealed carry' laws. Because there aren't enough cops to stop every crime, but there are a lot of honest citizens that can really really make a difference.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Fighting Child Porn Like Fighting Drugs

"We need a better approach which treats the root cause of this and fixes them before they fuck up someones life, not after."

only a 'feel' solution is likely to come out of this line of thinking, which means more gummint, stupidER laws, and a whole lot of emotion and getting NOTHING accomplished. no thanks.

How about this: you punish criminals as HARD as you can, keep them out of peaceful society for as LONG as you can, and actually _ENFORCE_ death penalties without decades of "appeals" dragging it on indefinitely?

There is actual _EVIL_ in the world. There are people who will go out of their way to do criminal act to get money or pleasure [or whatever], even if their skills and intelligence could otherwise get them employed, eventually making MORE money than they'd get doing illegal crap, or else they have enough money to do LEGAL things rather than ILLEGAL ones.

I've known a couple of these *kinds* of people: an uncle, and a friend's brother. Both are dead, and you COULD say their own evil/selfish lifestyle contributed to a short lifespan, as well as outright victimizing others (or society in general) from time to time.

It's not society's fault, their parents' fault, or anybody ELSE's fault but their own. They, by their VERY NATURE, seek to do evil things without giving a crap about how much it hurts others (or society in general). Sometimes people call them 'sociopaths', or even 'psychopaths', but I have a better term: CRIMINALS. And you PUNISH criminals, get them away from the peaceful and orderly people, by INCARCERATING them for as LONG as you can legally do so.

Fixing the root cause of THAT can only be done by eliminating the aberrations (criminally-minded people) from the bell curve of human nature. Or, you can just lock them up and keep them away from potential victims, which generally works every time it's tried...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Childcatcher

Re: depends on which side of the Atlantic

"Also, in certain jurisdictions, for reason I can't comprehend, even cartoons can be classified as 'Child pornography' by the law..."

which is assinine, because NOW it's just "moral police" and not protecting actual children from exploitation...

which, of course, is why child porn is illegal, because actual CHILDREN were victimized in its production. [sane laws would focus on THAT aspect alone, and leave the rest out of it]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: depends on which side of the Atlantic

regarding 'entrapment' etc.

I once received spam mail with an attached photo of a kid and the lower half of a naked male with what appeared to be "something pornographic" on the kid's face, obviously meant to represent something specific, and the kid was fully clothed. Someone online suggested it was probably photoshopped and that they used Pina colada for the 'visual effect', to skirt the child pornography laws. Still, something like that isn't welcome in your e-mail inbox...

I still submitted it (with headers) to an FBI online 'reporting' web site (probably ifccfbi.gov or similar)

there have also been frequent-enough cases where an image site gets a brief upload of such material, maybe 5 or 10 minutes before it's taken down. that's when you go to your intarweb cache and purge, purge, purge. can't do much about the need for 'brain bleach' though.

on a lighter note...

"the admission that the FBI had been distributing such images and videos online troubled many"

Sorta like "Fast and Furious" without the guns

TV anchor says live on-air 'Alexa, order me a dollhouse' – guess what happens next

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: You are wrong on "cannot distinguish users"... You never had a parrot then?

"The since deceased parrot"

and now I'm thinking of the parrot being nailed to his perch... pining for the Fjords?

I suppose Alexa could be trained to order crackers...

Fedora 25: You've got that Wayland feelin', oh, that Wayland feelin'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

"First touched Linux in 1995"

you got me beat by about 8 years. I installed Debian Woody the first time I used Linux... and FreeBSD 4.7 slightly before that. It was a true "awakening".

gnome 1.x with sawfish... bzzzzZZZZZ! [it used to make that sound on startup]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Another major change no one is asking for

"But people have been crying out for the end of X11 for a long time."

which people? I haven't... [I want to MEET those 'straw men' and not just hear about them]

(all _I_ want is a really simple C language cross-platform toolkit that lets me have "virtual space" in a multi-line edit window... wait, I'm working on one!!! X11workbench, which is still pre-alpha after all these years)

But you see, THEY get what THEY want, but _I_ do not get what _I_ want. that's hardly FAIR.

I have to wonder if it's the *SAME* kind of thinking behind Wayland, systemd, and gnome 3, that gave us Windows "Ape" (8.x) and Win-10-nic...

(yes we do NOT need "that' in the open source world, *especially* if it's part of 'Embrace, Extend, EXTINGUISH' or similar)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Try MATE if you can't stand GNOME 3

ACK on both "use MATE" and "gnome 3 has multiple desktops"

The biggest gripe from me regarding gnome 3 is the "fat finger friendliness". with gnome 2, then Mate, I can put 22 launch icons, plus the menu, system monitor, and the clock stuff into the top panel, and STILL have room for white space between groups of things. I can't even do HALF of that with Gnome 3 and they only let you group left, center, right. I want MULTIPLE groups, and positioned manually, MY way, not THEIR way. Like that. You can't cram them next to one another where a mouse does JUST fine selecting and clicking, because, fat-finger-friendly and "dumb it down for those who aren't on board with the new, shiny".

I wrote a web page, once, "making gnome 3 usable", which insulted gnome 3 while explaining how to deal with its quirks and set it up to be usable again [mostly]. And I (somewhat carefully) posted a link to it on a gnome 3 developer mailing list. I got several 'near flames' from various gnome 3 devs, but they wouldn't take the hint. THEN, Mate appeared, and the problems were solved!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

"Being a KDE and Nvidia user"

Mate and NVidia here. My older X11 desktop (from >2 years ago) works pretty well using Xorg, and FreeBSD had Gnome 2 back then (so I'm still running it). Mate's just the next revision...

change for the sake of change is highly overrated. why must the open source world follow Micro-shaft's ARROGANCE and FOLLY?

I'm not saying I *hate* Wayland, but there are things about X11 that I don't want to LOSE, things I use all of the time - like running an X11 application on an X server that's hosted on a different (remote) machine, via an ssh tunnel [for starters]. Can Wayland do THAT ?

If I start a Linux machine without a GUI [still possible to do this], and log into an ssh console, I should be able to 'export DISPLAY=mymachine:0.0' and run ANY X11 application, displaying the GUI on 'mymachine'. If that's "not secure enough", maybe it should be an option...

I'd also need to be able to run something like 'tightvnc server' to be able to debug GUI applications from within a GUI. Not sure if Wayland has the same kind of lock-up problems you get when you set debug breakpoints and don't respond to certain X11 events while paused... (that's an irritation in X11, yes).

from https://wayland.freedesktop.org/faq.html

"does it support remote rendering?"

"No, that is outside the scope of Wayland. To support remote rendering you need to define a rendering API, which is something I've been very careful to avoid doing."

And, THAT pretty much says it all, I think!

I hope that the open source world does NOT try and push Wayland the way they've pushed GNOME 3 and other "fat-finger-friendliness"

Microsoft goes retro with Vista, Zune-style Windows Neon makeover

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

Re: As long as we are griping...

beer and hot dogs - Play Ball!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: At least they're trying!

"I'm trying" - the excuse most often used by those who are too lazy to actually work at something and/or get it right.

Makes you wanna say "No excuse, recruit. Drop down and give me 20!"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Still not as good as it used to be...

"I'm having to use Windows 7 again for the first time since 2012. It feels so 'icky'. I much prefer the cleaner look of Windows 10."

should I treat this the way the ARROGANT MILLENIAL MICRO-SHAFT SHILLS treat those who do NOT like Win-10-nic?

You know, things like:

a) Refusing to 'CHANGE BACK' to something that's obviously better

b) Get on board, deal with it, it's the way things ARE, suck it up, etc.

c) don't want to "learn new things" (or in this case, re-learn old things)

d) Resisting "change" (or in this case, change BACK)

e) everybody ELSE likes it so you should, to

etc.

naw. I'll leave it alone. heh.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"I'll say it before Bob gets here with his pointless upper case: still fugly."

too late. heh.

Micro-shaft can't even find a 'decent interface look' with both hands and a map [especially since windows '95 through 7 are sitting there STARING BACK AT THEM, wondering W.T.F. Micro-shaft is doing...]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Still not as good as it used to be...

Right, it's *STILL* 2D FLATSO FLUGLY, no matter HOW much lipstick you put on the boar...

and no doubt, still spying on you, forcing you to take "updates" or they'll shove them up your down your throat.