Posts by bombastic bob

Infosec still (mostly) a boys club

Re: Change has to start the second they're born

I admit I only scanned through your post but got the gist. This "change from birth" idea has all been tried before, over and over, starting DECADES ago, and failed miserably every time.

You cannot deny the genetic programming associated with X and Y chromosomes. Boy and girl babies generally act and prefer things as boys and girls always do. Boys given barbies will treat them like toy soldiers, etc.. It's just part of "the difference" which I am _SO_ glad is there! So giving them "opposite" toys does NOT change their nature. [insert lame man vs woman joke] "a SEXIST would say...!" (could not resist, GG is HILARIOUS)

As a general rule women seem to want certain 'different things' from their careers than men do. Not as a specific, but as a generality. As such, women (apparently) often accept things from a job that men do not, INCLUDING lower pay, although in my opinion a manager who observes that a female employee is being UNDER paid should step in and correct it, because, RETENTION. So maybe THAT is "a fix", of sorts. (OK some labor law out there might already require it, but still).

So, like always,. you cannot up-front claim "discrimination" or "anti-diversity" or "we need more women" etc. until all of the facts are clear. Not that it is not worth pointing out, just not worth an overkill overreaction.

Canonical displays controversial 'ad' in shell update prog

You normalise it here, where does it end?

Exactly! And I like your point about Stallman supporting spam-mail... when it first started.

Re: apt-get is infected as well

Devuan maybe? (It's all I use these days whenever i can avoid something infected with systemd)

Re: Why not just do it above board?

some flavors cost money but you get something for that (like support)

Most linux distros cost nothing in money. but occasionally I have fixed bugs and submitted those fixes to OSS developers. That is also a "cost" if you think about it.

In principle I agree as everything has a cost of some kind. But the truth is, a monetary cost only exists for SOME flavors of Linux.

And Canonical is BLOWING it, big time.

From the article: you get an unsolicited ad for the scheme – and some users are not happy about it.

Only SOME users? (I think most who are angry are a silent angry majority)

Soaring costs, inflation nurturing generation of 'quiet quitters' among under-30s

Re: Keeping up your CV and not good for your career

sadly that reply post got that many up-votes.

You should pick a career where you WANT to go to work every day, AND get paid well for doing it. Otherwise, 40 something upvotes for being so dissatisfied in the chosen career path, and all of those downvotes for what should be considered "good career advice". Sad.

probably nobody will see this 17 days out. had to say it anyway.

When you sign the FRONT of the checks, you learn and understand a lot about how the business world works.

And "*FEEL*" becomes IRRELEVANT. As it SHOULD be.

Re: Managers beware

That's possibly true. Those with a sense of "entitlement" are probably more likely to "quiet quit" than those who are "achievers" with a strong work ethic.

It's a turning point in your career when you suddenly realize that you are a VENDOR and the company you do work for is YOUR CUSTOMER, rather than "a job" being somewhat entitled to you, justifying a LOT of blame and complaints and the willingness to stir up trouble because "wrong pronoun" or "boss yelled at you".

And pay scales are based on how profitable YOUR job is compared to how much it costs to have you in that position, If you make what YOU do more valuable, by hard work, experience, or efficiency, then promotions and raises SHOULD follow... and if not, keep your resume/CV up to date and spread it around.

"Quit Quit" is likely to follow you around. It can NOT be good for your career,. Co-workers are often good sources for new positions (especially if you are a contractor),. But if they know that you get lazy to protest things, they may not recommend you so readily...

Microsoft leaves the Office, rebrands everything as 365

Re: The Microsoft Department of Renaming Things

I read it as a Department of Reaming Things! What's wrong with me?!

"Freudian Slip" Dylsexia. Happens to me a lot.

Re: Wake me up

I actually got scolded and even ridiculed once back in 1997 when I was doing remote work and I was e-mailed a document "in the new format". I asked very nicely if I could get documents in RTF format, got the scolding and ridicule, and ended up paying $$$ for the NEWER Office 97, which had CLIPPY in it. WORST. PURCHASE. EVAR!

Re: Orifice at work Libre at home

ACK on 1900 not a leap year. Occasionally I need to dredge up my old date to days algorithm and that one 'if' statement about leap years being divisible by 4 and either NOT divisible by 100 (1900), or divisible by 400 (2000), but that may not work with non-Gregorian calendars or the various times in which a calendar correction was made. Still ok for anything after the 18th century.

(last time I used it was re-writing some bloatware web page calendar javascript data entry thingy for picking a date, for which the old one was some canned BS-ware that used, of all things, JQUERY - when I got done with it, NATIVE JS ONLY - and the adaptation of 30 year old C code was pretty straightforward)

Re: Lipstick: meet pig

by all indications, including the overall shape of the logo,. they failed to put the lipstick on the end that goes "oink"

Re: If you simply never sign up, that problem solves itself!

part of the online identity, timesharing, and cloudy storage model is the ability for 3rd parties and gummints to see where you are and what you're up to... (where exactly in the world is that server located?)

Re: Pass me the incense and put the whale song up to 11.

must've calculated it with a Pentium-1

there's still bugs in there that I reported in Word 2.0c

After an unspecified amount of time they become *features*

Laugh all you want. There will be a year of the Linux desktop

what they really want people to do is rent a cloud-based Desktop-as-a-Service

(title is quote from article)

If the future for MS "services" to be online AND subscription "time sharing", then we're full circle back to the same old mainframe/mini and dumb terminal model.

There is no clear advantage to using a time-share over a local PC unless you are a mega-enterprise that wants to limit hardware costs.

And the TRUE INNOVATION from MILLIONS of independent software developers (working on their OWN stuff, much of which ended up as open source software) that has been made possible by local PC's running the OS that most people are using, can NOT be ignored. Micros~1 (particularly Ballmer) *USED* *TO* *SAY* "Developers Developers Developers Developers", because it really DID put them at the top of the market.

WILL THERE BE THAT SAME CAPABILITY IN THE FUTURE? Or would the cloudy new "services" model lock EVERYONE in to Micros~1-only coding?

Android is by far more popular than iOS especially for developers like ME that do not want to pay "the Apple Tax". It is ExTREMELY open and the cost of starting development (other than your time) is the bandwidth to download it all and a PC (possibly running Linux) to run it on. If Micros~1 abandons developers (aside from those willing to pay for the privilege) they may be reduced to a 'niche' market, quickly.

And once again I am faced with an immediate choice: Pay out $800 for another year of "what used to be MSDN", or ABANDON MICROS~1 OS DEVELOPMENT ENTIRELY (seeing as my ability to run Windows 11 is flaky at best inside of a Vitrtual Box VM, even JUST for testing, and I can continue to target 7 indefinitely without their downloads)?

But if windows desktop is subscription only AND "in the cloud", will the applications that I write (that run just fine on 7) EVEN WORK ON THAT PLATFORM???

Re: #@$Drivers

I will not purchase any printer that is not CUPS-capable, nor a scanner that is "not SANE". As for the rest, it is true that SOME hardware vendors play the windows-only game, but nowadays [with some exceptions] even cheap garbage from China seems to have Linux support, particularly when it comes to bluetooth and network things.

as for older gear, you are probably right. There are industrial systems out there that have Windows 98 control software (and no path for upgrade)

Self-imposed climate change may have killed Martian life

good analysis

Re: Kickstart terraforming

yeah "liquid" but the same way as melting ice or even glass, as I understand it. behaves more like solid or cold molasses.

But yeah you'd need to nuke the CRAP out of Mars' core to get it making magnetic fields again

I agree on the "life is probably everywhere". Even with the idea of intelligent design, why would a god NOT create life on multiple planets?

I do have some trouble with their assumptions, an H2 + CO2 atmosphere. Earth had a high CO2 atmosphere early on, which most likely favored plant life until the CO2 was consumed (this was CO2 from volcanic activity).

Atmospheric gasses usually accumulate because of volcanos. Gasses and compounds formed in the mantle end up in the atmosphere. Earth's atmosphere is ALSO being sustained this way, as I understand it.

Elements exist in a predictble percentage based on isotopes and so you can expect x% nitrogen, y% oxygen, etc. whether as compounds or as elemental gasses. Example, Jupiter has a lot of ammonia (all that nitrogen) and H2+He in "solar proportions" due to its near sun-like gravity, as well as some water and maybe ice at the core, whereas earth has N2 gas and lots of water and probably lost most of the H2 and He from the relatively low gravity and solar winds. Oxygen will quickly form water from hydrogen, depleting the remaining atmospheric hydrogen and raining onto the surface, and so CO2 + H2 without even N2 (let alone O2) on a smaller planet like Mars seems very strange to me...

Additionally lighter gasses tend to get blown off by solar winds, especially when a planet's magnetic field gets weak. Mars has little or no volcanic activity and a nearly solid core that generates little or no magnetic field. It is smaller than earth and farther away from the sun, and that is probably why. So solar wind would eventually strip away everything lighter than CO2, leaving CO2 behind. That is what we see now. CO2 is one of the heavier gasses in the atmosphere and that is why you still find it n Mars.

If Mars had an atmosphere more like Earth's (O2 N2 H2O etc) with the same CO2 partial pressure as it has now, it would be VERY earth-like. I ran the numbers once on this just to be sure.

So although this model is interesting (somewhat), it has (as far as I can tell) NO evidence that it actually happened. So no biological climate change for Mars, either.

Loads of PostgreSQL systems are sitting on the internet without SSL encryption

The preferred method of remote access by developers is using SSH

agreed. I have somewhat generic scripts for both forward and reverse tunnels, easily adapted

PC shipments fall at fastest rate ever as businesses slam wallets shut

from the article: "Windows 11 would underpin a massive refresh cycle"

then you mention:

"As we head in to a seemingly global recession" etc.

"Is it really only me?"

Not just you. These kinds of economic factors are intuitively obvious to those who understand these things.

Prior to layoffs and cutbacks, businesses stop buying new computers and related hardware, and try to make do with what they have. And if Windows 11 (like Vista did) has extra hardware requirements, no "up"grade to windows 11 either.

reference THIS reg article too: https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/10/windows_11_adoption/?td=rt-3a

I suppose Micros~1 was VERY short-sighted when they released 11 with the extra hardware requirements when they SHOULD have been able to predict BOTH the inflation AND the recession back in November of 2020.(it was released october last year). So in effect the Micros~1 marketeers did a LOUSY business forecast (So much for ESG-style thinking). And because of the lackluster nature of the "new shiny", the need to buy new hardware is greatly diminished.

So right now companies want to stay alive without laying off. As things get worse, this may change. I do not know how bad things can get in EU and UK right now after Putin's pipeline was destroyed, but here in the USA the high fuel prices and even higher living expenses mean employees want BIG raises. and companies have to cut costs wherever, they can, and those pay raises are likely to be lukewarm to none at all.

So yeah, no extra $ for equipment upgrades at the moment.

For me this means wait for a bargain before I replace my server with something I build from scratch (like the others) because it is ~15 years old. Sometimes low demand brings low prices so those who have a budget can take advantage of it, NOT get the bleeding edge machine, and have something that would have cost me 5 times as much if I bought it 2 years ago.

[assuming I survive the recession]

[unrelated I do not like this new interface for comments. the edit font is STILL way too small and now the buttons look 2D FLATSO like Win-10-nic. AT LEAST ADD A SHADOW EFFECT - if you want a CSS example I can give you one]

California to phase out gas furnaces, water heaters by 2030

do Californians live in the real world?

SOME still do, but the rest are in CLOWN WORLD

Re: All-Electric Homes

"Medalion Homes" - I remember those, advertising on TV even. I lived in one in the 1960's, but it had gas central heat and gas water heat at my mother's insistence. They actually HAD IT BUILT at the time. It's worth over $1M now, but neither my mother nor myself nor my siblings saw ANYTHING out of it... the side effect of (mostly bio-dad) parents making VERY bad decisions.

Re: Ridiculous

It's those laws of physics, getting in the way again...

And now another shoutout for Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority"

NOTE: there is potential with things like peltier devices; however I do not know how large a peltiere-based heat pump would have to be to provide adequate energy transfer. A much better way would be to sink pipes 50 or so feet into the earth, where the temperature tends to be above freezing in most places, and use that as a heat sink/source for a heat pump. The question is whether or not the extra expense and maint costs are worth the benefit...

Re: Scrubbers for fireplaces?

the very bill this article is writing about is banning gas grills too!

You KNOW that there will be people driving their SUVs and pickup trucks to Nevada and Arizona to get a propane grill and plenty of fuel for it, right? Or, sending someone ELSE to do it.

Those with money do NOT have to obey these "laws".. "THEY" will ALWAYS have "nice things" - UNLIKE the rest of us!!!

2 words - the name of a restaurant: "French Laundry" - a perfect example of this 2-tiered snobbery. During somewhat recent lockdowns, Gavin Newsome took his family to a restaurant when NOBODY ELSE COULD GO TO ONE, and they DID NOT WEAR MASKS (the ones they demanded US to wear). SImilarly Nancy Pelosi got a hair cut in San Francisco and was photographed doing so without a mask, when ALL of the hair salons were in lockdown [except for servicing HER]. THIS is who these people ARE. Without arguing the moraiity of shutdowns and lockdowns and masks, it is OBVIOUS that for THEM, it is "ONE LAW FOR ME and ANOTHER for THEE..." [they must view us as plebes, mooks, and serfs]

Re: Scrubbers for fireplaces?

If I must have a scrubber on my fireplace

THEN CIGARETTE SMOKERS NEED SCRUBBERS TOO!!!

(there. I said it)

Re: Not "Half the Power"

that's kinda true.

Often the 220/240 outlet is split phase, depending. I am not sure if my 220 outlets are or not.

am pretty sure the electric stove is on a 220 circuit, and there's a 220 outlet for an electric clothes dryer. But I use gas for that. Also the water heater and central heating (gas). I'd rather keep it like that.

Re: Wishful thinking

If my bedroom gets to cold at night *I* *AM* *SICK* *ALL* *OF* *THE* *TIME*

My thermostat stays where it is, with supplementary portable heaters as needed. Since I am limited to 15A on that circuit, they can't be very powerful, either. It gets amazingly cold sometimes, even in Southern Cali-Forn-You, along the coast.

Re: Are they mandating the replacement tech?

Have you run the numbers and a cost analysis to prove your claims? "Because I *FEEL*" is not good enough to make long term plans, you know...

Re: Nukin' it J-Style

oh it shut down just fine. the emergency cooling did not run, though, because the tsunami flooded the diesel generators. If it had NOT been for the flooded diesel generators, no leakage would have ocurred, and no meltdowns either.

decay heat is as high as 8% of operating power immediately after shutdown (which exponentially drops over several days to something more manageable), and nuclear waste (stored in the buildings) constantly emits heat. The inability to cool them resulted in melted containment and radiation leakage.

Re: Are they mandating the replacement tech?

electric heat in Cali-Forn-You is MORE EXPENSIVE, regardless.

I own a GAS CLOTHES DRYER, which I purchased DECADES AGO because they are WAY cheaper to operate. Same basic idea as gas heat. I also prefer a gas stove (but have not had one of these in a long time) because they are faster responding and easier to control the level of heat, among other things.

The ONLY effect this is going to have is to drive anyone who is NOT a "rich snob" out of the state!

(I will be quite old by then - Texas is looking a LOT better!)

Girls Who Code books 'banned' in some US classrooms

Trans-formers - more than meets the eye!!!

Re: critical race theory, sex education, and inclusive gender language

pronoun... pain. Seriously ???

I'm just gonna stop now before I rant for 14 paragraphs.

Re: Ban Harry Potter!

I agree, the attempts to ban Harry Potter were pretty lame. And I would consider myself to be a christian, though I do not go to churches [sometimes God's fan club can be irritating and even toxic].

That being said, I do hope that in the case of these "Girls Who Code" books that the arguments from that Mom's group are not equally as petty. They could be. Or maybe not. More information is needed.

icon, because, it's possibly ironic

Re: One day they will look at their daughters killed by the Moral Police...

I have not seen prohibitively expensive feminine hygiene products, nor sports bras that are more expensive than boys' T shirts. So I do not "get" what you are saying. I actually go to a store on occasion and have purchased such things for a female relative so I have a pretty good idea of the costs involved. Maybe the only place you can find them is at an expensive department store, but places like WalMart and Target (here in the USA) have these things pretty cheap.

I do not think any of what you said makes ANY sense at all. And how is the price of women's clothing and hygiene products in any way MYSOGYNISTIC? (REAL mysogyny may exist in places like Iran and Afghanistan, but not in westernized countries, not any more)

Re: The last sentence of the article has it.

That;s MISTER SCUM to you.

Re: The last sentence of the article has it.

No. just no.

Re: Mission creep

In My Bombastic Opinion there is not enough information in the article to make any comment, especially without any specifics.being mentioned. I can speculate on possible topics not suitable for kids of all ages but I do not even want to REMOTELY go there without some specific examples.

There are just too many political hot-topic bezerk-button things these days that occasionally find their way into kids' books and set off atomic rage in one or more groups of people whose bezerk buttons get pressed by "fill in the blank."

On the surface this Mom's group sounds like concerned parents whom I might agree with on a lot of issues. But they could also be religious fanatics or something, and so more information is needed to understand what is really happening here. They should explain to El Reg and give some examples.

Anyway, need more information. How else can I put it?

GNOME hits 43: Welcome To Guadalajara

Re: No mention of the nightmare that is GTK4? Why not?

It's almost impossible to move from GTK3 to GTK4 without a total rewrite......

Which is YET ANOTHER reason that major packages (firefox, thunderbird, vlc, wireshark, and so on) should NOT DO ANY DEVELOPMENT for GTK4 !!!

* Colossal waste of time

* Isolate/abandon Mate and Cinnamon users

* Very little benefit, apparently HIGH cost in time and debugging

* No future in GTK4 (or Wayland for that matter) In My Bombastic Opinion

"Just Say NO"

(and maybe it will ride off into the sunset, never to be seen again...)

Re: The strive to be a desktop on mobile has killed both KDE and Gnome

I forget which KDE was used by Linspire but it looked and worked ok for me. Then again I quickly replaced Linspire with Debian (this was long before systemd) so I could have an inexpensive Linux box with an OS that I believed gave me more choice and a better way of maintaining it.

(and my desktop of choice at that time was Gnome 2, back when gnome was pretty good)

I disagree. The point of open source is NOT to create your own "fifedom" unless you like a small audience or are just doing it for fun.

The point of open source is to collaborate, either by just giving what you do out to the public sphere (with a license if you want), or to assist others by fixing/improving their stuff. Or testing. Or feedback.

my sentiments exactly! (unfortunately there is a small subset of very vocal, unfortunately influential users who influence these projects and possibly inject money into them... maybe Micros~1?)

Gnome devs became like arrogant Micros~1 "developers" when Gnome 3 was released. Linus had a nice rant about it. It was mostly capitalization and use of the F word if I remember correctly. Deservedly so.

"We will, we will, FORCE YOU"

(to be all 2D FLATTY FLATSO FLATASS McFLATFACE with! Adwaita!)

this "force you" mentality DOES! NOT! BELONG! IN! OPEN! SOURCE!!!

I thought Mate, Cinnamon, and Devuan spoke LOUD AND CLEAR on this.... (but some apparently need stronger affirmation, like maybe a clue-by-four)

Loath, because limited to Adwaita (which i SPECIFICALLY loathe) and 2D FLATTY FLATSO McFLATFAC, unless I misswed something along the line.

Any major software package that uses gnome at ALL needs to consider GTK2 and GTK3 support rather than GTK4 so that Mate and Cinnamon users aren't left out...

How to turn off the 'Adwaita' look in firefox:

a) use mate and install "mate-themes" or similar, basically to get "TraditionalOk" (other desktops YMMV)

b) from command line select TraditionalOk for GTK3

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences theme 'TraditionalOk'

c) in about:config

widget.content.gtk-theme.override = TraditionalOk

widget.non-native.theme.enabled = false

reload browser (or maybe just the page) and that *HIDEOUS* *ADWAITA* *SCROLLBAR* will *GO* *THE* *@#$%* *AWAY* and be replaced with a REAL one. of your choice.

Amazon accused of singling out, harassing union organizers

Re: Toilet Politics

"targets" - then the "fridge moment" happened..

yeah about that - I'm guessing that efficiency experts focused on whip-cracking the warehouse employees by increasing their 'targets' rather than finding ways to make it POSSIBLE for a non-stressed non-whipped employee to just naturally get things done more quickly...

(then the urinal analogy becomes even more appropriate)

Re: "what staff can and can't do in break rooms and other non-work areas"

that's the perception, yeah.

That goes with the perception that their employees are being treated like disposable NPCs in a video game (which is why they are unionizing).

Re: In todays headlines..

On average, unionised workers earn up to 15% more than non union workers do. They have better benefits and working conditions.

This is why unions exist (says Captain Obvious)

Corollary: If Amazon had fixed this (wage scale, benefits) without the unions being involved, there would be no discussion regarding unionization.

Amazon should be doing whatever they can NOW to get a favorable union contract and THEN just let them unionize.

Alert: 15-year-old Python tarfile flaw lurks in 'over 350,000' code projects

I usually use the '-t' option to test tarballs before extracting, usually to see if it has a top level directory or is more of a "tar bomb" i.e. no top level directory (meaning I have to change directories before extracting).

maybe a quicky utility could be writttten to use 'tar -t' to scan for files with ".." in the path, then flag it or something like a malware scanner would.

Tesla Megapack battery ignites at substation after less than 6 months

Re: Wait until we get te cheap Chinese knocks-off

then your battery would be the size of your fist and you would swap it every 1000 miles.

Unlikely. Chemical reactions that make batteries possible do not have that kind of energy density.

The limits of physics and chemistry apply to all levels of auto engineering, from material strength, melting point, and energy stored in a gallon of fuel, to the energy capacity of batteries and even the efficiency of tires gripping the road.

Internal combustion engines became lighter and more efficient but you cannot escape the realities of burn temperature, exhaust pressure, and atmospheric composition. Similarly electric cars have road friction, motor size and weight, battery and power conversion inefficiencies, and maximum energy densities associated with the chemical reactions of the batteries themselves.

electric drive is more efficient when you look at "not idling" as proved by hybrid engine cars. And for fuel replenishment and distance, the hybrid cars are superior to all electric. It's all just physics and chemistry.

Re: Wait until we get te cheap Chinese knocks-off

I expect that if you were to pound a railroad spike into the battery pack of an electric vehicle, a fire would result.

Similarly, several 30 caliber rounds from a single shot bolt action rifle (using 1906 cartridge design) might also do the trick.

Rapid discharge, over-discharge, both do damage to the Li Ion batteries and can cause swelling, fires, and so on. A cell reversal could be disastrous (so hopefully this is being monitored continuously). The tech works fine if you do not short out or otherwise physically damage the cells, so long as you stop discharging them completely (not even a trickle) when ANY cell voltage drops below about 2.5V.

It's sort of like carrying a butane lighter, which if mistreated has enough fuel inside to do some serious damage, but works safely when used as designed.

Re: Look to Dinorwig

ask yourself this: how many cars would it take to respond to a 10% increase in electrical demand, something that might happen when everyone arrives home and starts turning lights/heat/AC/stoves on...

capacity of one electric car - about 50KWH (being as generous as possible)

Total electric demand on average in USA - 450 million KW (if I calculated right, 3.9 trillion KWH per year / 8760 hours per year)

number of fully charged plugged-in cars it would take to sustain that for one hour - 9 million (being generous). That is average, not peak (when "help" would be needed, so at least DOUBLE that demand value for a more realistic estimate).

And do not forget that for every KWH coming out of a car, most likely 1.1KWH (or more) would have to go back IN.

A 10% jump would need 9 million cars to take up the slack for one hour - and with an unrealistic generous estimate of around 1 million cars plugged in at any one time, they'd be completely drained in about 7 minutes... unless my math is off. No driving for YOU until it re-charges in several HOURS.

Realistically this kind of battery drainage would damage the cars, so you can probably assume the demand peak would have to be more like 1% which is NOT very practical, assuming that people are willing to have their car batteries COMPLETELY drained like that. I doubt it.

using plug-in electric car batteries for peaker storage is an impractical pipe dream.

Solution: BUILD MORE POWER PLANTS TO HANDLE DEMAND THE OLD SCHOOL WAY (nuke plants preferred for oh SO many reasons!)