* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Dirty COW explained: Get a moooo-ve on and patch Linux root hole

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: "It's been patched and now..."

"Meanwhile, who knew about it and exploited it?"

you HAVE to ask? [probably everybody with military-grade hackers]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Utterly inexcusable...

"Isn't this being a bit over hyped?"

yes, and no.

planes rarely crash. when a plane crashes, it's BIG NEWS, and gummint agencies, airlines, plane manufacturers, etc. go to work to prevent such things from happening in the future.

Same here. Linux security problems are RARE. When it happens, it's a big thing. Let's just get if fixed.

On a related note, embedded systems that cannot easily run binary executables will most likely NOT have a true vulnerability. So unless your IoT device or router has a COMMAND SHELL that is directly exposed to the intarwebs, it's not very likely to be exploited. [and if it DOES, the system architect needs to be sufficiently whipped with a Cat-5-O-Nine-Tails]

Third of Donald Trump's debate deplorables are mindless automatons

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: OTOH, back in the Real World

"Bot Alert!"

yes, the downvote ratio for that particular post shows that the anti-Trump 'downvote bots' are all working.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Third of Donald Trump's debate deplorables are mindless automatons ...

looks like the 'downvote bot' spotted a (remotely?) pro-Trump post. Howler monkeys again.

Donald Trump running insecure email servers

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: He's just a candidate

"Right now his campaign is run just like a lot of misguided small businesses out there -- just enough IT experience to cause problems. They got email up and running and called it a day when it could send & receive."

sounds like a reasonable explanation to me.

Trump is a real estate guy, not an IT guy or an engineer.

(and he needs a BETTER I.T. staff - Micro-shaft servers? ew...)

It's finally happened: Hackers are coming for home routers en masse

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Who's responsible?

"Malicious traffic on a residential connection needs to be detected and filtered away by the ISP. The user needs to be warned and, if all else fails, disconnected"

until it's actually 'windows update' and it causes your win-10-nic machine to refuse to boot...

Or, worse, your streaming video from hulu stops playing. 'false hits' seem to be more common than REAL ones, like spam filters by Micro-shaft. They miss the spam, and round-file e-mails from Mom. And you can't "just shut it off"...

Yeah, 'just filter' the malicious content. if it were only THAT easy...

US reactor breaks fusion record – then runs out of cash and shuts down

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: What is its maximum performance?

"No the answer is much much bigger"

And, you so wittily point out the core of the problem here: Fusion *RESEARCH* is being paid for. NOT Fusion reactor designs that make electric power and make money for investors.

Just pointing THAT out, too...

(you get what you pay for)

Microsoft tries, fails to crush 'gender bias' lawsuit brought by its own women engineers

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

the REAL problem is that hideous 'peer review' system

The REAL problem here is that hideous 'peer review' system, only something that an IDIOT could have rectally extrapolated from the bowels of hell.

Other than the obvious, that a handful of idiots who use their personal bias in reviewing others are skewing the results enough to make a difference [assuming those hired in management positions are LESS likely to do so AND are in a position of ACCOUNTABILITY if they DO], with no one to blame for the (alleged) bias and result-skewing, the system ITSELF is to blame.

It's kind of like relying on up/down votes to validate your point, rather than FACTS or LOGIC. Too easy for a handful of HOWLER MONKEYS to come along and sling poo (aka downvote en masse) a particular group or opinion, thereby creating an *APPEARANCE* of unpopularity, in an attempt to shame or discredit a perfectly valid opinion or position.

So I'll blame the SYSTEM, that IDIOTIC 'peer review' system that Micro-shaft has been using, a result of the former COO who was CANNED a while back...

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2016/07/08/kevin_turner_and_the_new_microsoft/

It's a fair bet that THIS guy was responsible for a NUMBER of *FAILS* at Micro-shaft over the last decade or so since he's been around, *INCLUDING* GWX!!!

And so, by creating a (literal) *HOSTILE* environment within the company, they got what they asked for: A lawsuit by a couple of women who may *ACTUALLY* have a legit case, due to the HOSTILE 'peer review' system that somehow "downvoted" them OUT of promotions and raises!

Linux Foundation whacks open JavaScript projects umbrella

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

The problem with JavaScript in web pages...

The problem with JavaScript in web pages is that there is TOO MUCH of it.

Anyone who understands HTML could, in my view, use frames and/or tables to accomplish what hundreds of kilobytes of downloaded script (written by others) seems to do. If the only thing that your script does is MEASURE THE DISPLAY AREA and then set a few DHTML values, it would probably run FASTER and more CONSISTENTLY than "what's being done now".

This is another reason I use 'NoScript'. If your page requires scripting to display, I probably don't want to view the content. And if it loads "all that" from CDN's, it's probably for TRACKING or SPYING or generally IRRITATING me with ads.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: How about making it use more than one CPU core....

'troll' icon observed. heh.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Really?

"the industry would be better served by a project dedicated to replacing JavaScript with something better structured and more maintainable."

well said. multiple thumbs-up (but only one counted)

Soylent bars farting recall

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Total Recall

repurpose the recipe as a gag item, alongside the hot pepper gum and the 'stinky' deoderant.

The exploding Note 7 is no surprise – leaked Samsung doc highlights toxic internal culture

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: #nothingtodowithnote7

the best explanation (something I google'd for recently) is that the batteries underwent mechanical stresses during assembly that caused the insulation tape to be dislodged, resulting in short circuits.

Or something like that. sorry, don't have source available but it was easy to find.

Then again, an *ANGRY* employee might be seen FORCING the battery into its confined space, afraid to speak up, afraid of losing his job or getting suspended for a period of time that results in economic hardship, yotta yotta. If work environment is THAT hostile, according to what the article says, 'other things' may simply grow out of that...

found: https://www.cnet.com/news/why-is-samsung-galaxy-note-7-exploding-overheating/

Without new anti-robot laws, humanity is doomed, MPs told

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Johnny Cab (from article photo)

Johnny Cab is a crowning moment of awesome for that one line: "I'm not familiar with that address" (watch movie for context)

[voiced by Robert Picardo, the 'emergency medical hologram' from Star Trek Voyager - kinda looks like him, too]

Twitter yanks data feeding tube out of police surveillance biz

bombastic bob Silver badge

"it's more like anti-social media."

like IRC and USENET

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

"If the police want to know what someone is saying, they can follow them."

as long as the information the cops have is the same information ANY of us can get, why is it a problem? leaving digital footprints is just what it is. As long as evidence-gathering laws and restrictions such as subpoenas and judiciary approval aren't violated, cops should be able to collect whatever they can. It's like the cops observing a meeting in a public place, or a conversation on a public street, whatever. Not the same as tapping your phone or bugging your house or using surveilance cameras through your windows.

So, that being said...

Water the garden on Tuesdays.

Do not consume the muffins.

Percival has new shoes.

Carry the flowers to the grave site.

Janet has a Ming vase.

Bill carries the book.

Untold mysteries await.

No shoes, no shirt, no service.

(that oughta feed the info-gatherers for a while)

PC sales sinking almost as fast as Donald Trump's poll numbers

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: The Kit Is Fast Becoming Just Tools

"If the job is still getting done 'well enough'; why change the tool(s)?"

exactly, like "my 10 year old PC does just fine, and does *NOT* have Win-10-nic on it!"

Which is a nice segue into the REAL problem: Win-10-nic is a reason NOT to get a 'new' one.

If Micro-shaft simply changed their policies to allow new computers to ship with '7 Home' on them again, sales would get a NICE boost. But ever since that's been "not happening", PC sales have suffered. Blatantly.

Because, 'new, shiny' isn't enough to sell a new computer these days. Especially if it's "wearing Win-10-nic".

Like it or not, here are ALL your October Microsoft patches

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Is wheel-spinning replacing nagware as the new Windows 10 incentive?

"Why can't Microsoft get their own programs to be compatible with their own updates?"

something about knowing the difference between THIS and THIS.

/me realizes where 1st photo is located, now thinks it's funny

Nuke plant has been hacked, says Atomic Energy Agency director

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: PDP-11

" thought that PDP-11 assembler was called "C". Surely it should be possible to train the engineers needed to maintain the code."

nope. it's called 'MACRO' but the C language has many features that are actually implemented by PDP-11 in hardware.

Register modes include 'pre' and 'post' auto-increment and auto-decrement, and a sensible method of index-based indirection. Some of these are (obviously) found in other processors too (like x86, M68K) but PDP-11 pioneered a lot of this by implementing it in the hardware like that. The intent was to avoid accumulator-based operations by using GP registers, and significantly reduce the size of the code.

Anyway, it was pretty good tech at the time. If it weren't for the 16-bit limited address space (and klunky ways of extending it beyond 64k), it might have become the basis for PCs.

conclusion: what you said is _almost_ correct. The 'C' language WAS developed for PDP-11 and VAX (as part of developing UNIX, well known history), and has PDP-11-isms in it like '++' . It's like 1 step above MACRO assembler on a PDP-11.

(I'd give examples but I might get some detail wrong and get down-voted over it, ha ha ha)

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: One wonders ...

@jake

"I've been making money from my knowledge of the PDP11 family since 1979"

It's MY opinion that a virus or trojan on a PDP11 would be hard to insert, depending on how the OS was built/installed. Without a multi-user system and a remote terminal, I'd say IMPOSSIBLE without physical access. And that would be noticed. RT11 *could* be re-built from an operator console, but the reboot of the new kernel would ALSO be noticed, like "reactor scram" due to the reboot (or similar).

You're probably more experienced with these systems than me, so would you concur? Mostly just curious.

bombastic bob Silver badge

it's a fair bet that a reactor would use something like RT-11 since it's an RTOS that can support custom hardware. So guessing the OS is probably not hard.

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: "Try finding a virus that would both be capable of infecting a PDP-11"

RE: Using a PDP11 for the next 20 years...

it's actually not so bad. you could (theoretically) swap in an emulator running 'simhv' or some other well-known emulator [if such an emulator exists] when the hardware breaks down. Unless there's some super-custom peripheral device involved...

it also demonstrates that reactor control computers don't have to be all that sophisticated.

/me envisions doing it with an Arduino... or RPi . And RPi could run 'simhv'

(I did some PDP-11 programming back in 'school days' including MACRO assembler so I'm kinda familiar)

FreeBSD 11.0 lands, with security fixes to FreeBSD 11.0

bombastic bob Silver badge
Go

Re: Why the torrent hate?

"Do you see an even smaller boot only image? You can download that but that means you pull down binary tarballs at install time. The tarballs are quite small, however."

this is the option I prefer, for a number of reasons. The biggest reason: It's because I don't want to download anything I'm not actually going to install.

bombastic bob Silver badge

plug for ghostbsd

and I'll put in a plug for GhostBSD, which is basically a "live CD" version of FreeBSD. The short answer is (as of a couple of weeks ago) "they're working on it" so I expect to see an 11-based GhostBSD at some point in the near future.

[it makes installing FBSD kinda like installing a Linux distro]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

FBSD means stability

"I remember an earlier FreeBSD being delayed by a whole year because it was deemed not ready."

For the most part, I find FBSD's "a bit behind" stability better than bleeding edge. Debian's Linux distro has a similar philosophy.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: years of FreeBSD on the desktop

it will probably be a while before I put FBSD 11 on my main desktop [time to upgrade everything and need for everything "now" and not "when I finally get it working again" are the 2 main reasons].

However, I need to see if my RPi patches were implemented [bug 211979]. It makes it possible to use an 'ATX Raspi' board to safely power the RPi down when you do 'poweroff'. It detects the shutdown when a 'formerly output' pin suddenly becomes an input. The problem is that in linux, this happens as expected [GPIO resets]. In FBSD, they leave them all 'as-is'. but for the RPi I added a simple kernel driver [on someone else's suggestion] that resets the GPIO pins by hooking the shutdown event at the right point. it's pretty simple, yeah. upside, it COULD become a 'port'. downside, it SHOULD be built into the existing drivers, but apparently "something else" using ARM core needs it the way it is now... so THAT hack is taking precedence for some reason.

Anyway, aside from THAT, with my patch in place RPi using FBSD 11 RC-1 worked pretty well [with some other minor nitty things]. So it looks like I'll need to download the image, now, and see what happens. When I have a spare moment, anyway...

Otherwise - YAY. It looks like it should be a welcome release. It is supposed to have 64-bit linux support available, which would make it possible to do ALL of my dev work on FBSD instead of having to have a 64-bit Linux VM to run certain things [say "android dev" which oddly requires 64-bit linux binaries, go figure...]. Then, time (and maybe money) to get it onto a workstation so i can use it. Here's hoping! And it should have mate, so I'll need to see what changes THAT makes over my "classic" gnome 2 desktop I've grown to really really like and do NOT want it pooched up by "new, shiny" thankyouverymuch. It's a 'working/get-work-done machine' not a "play with new toy" machine.

(FBSD "main working desktop" user for over a decade, only updated when I have a week's time and a spare machine, solid otherwise)

Internet of Things botnets: You ain’t seen nothing yet

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

why on earth would I want a wifi enabled XXX

@Olius - exactly!

"But Father, I don't want any of that."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3YiPC91QUk

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

Re: telnet?

"Seriously, this needs shooting in the head now."

YES.

Worth mentioning, if it has a NETWORK STACK, but uses TELNET, someone didn't go far enough with the firmware implementation. If it's got ROOM in the NVRAM for the network stack, it's got room for SSH and/or other reasonable security. And non-guessable user names [unlike 'root' or 'admin']. And force the user to change the user/pass credentials before the device will function. And press a button on the device to reset it if you forget your user/password. And so on.

not rocket science, just LAZINESS and CLUELESSNESS on the part of the IoT developers.

LIABILITY applies, In My Bombastic Opinion.

US govt straight up accuses Russia of hacking prez election

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: I can believe that the Russians are intentionally trying to influence/compromise things.

"Count yourself lucky we're limited to only one!"

heh, that's good. nice reply.

[what multiplication factor should I consider when seeing the totals?]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Obaka is just angry over his "legacy"

"Use that education, and that experience to make your thoughts and feelings "

I don't do FEELINGS. And last I checked, even EL REG uses capitalization and other, similar techniques, in the headlines and whatnot. It's a technique. I happen to *LIKE* it. That way, you can see the emphasis where I *INTEND* it to be.

you're welcome. /me not going to change based on the opinions of others. I'm "bombastic bob". You know, "bombastic". I take on that name because it's what I am, and I wear it with pride.

downvotes, thanks. but "getting personal" like that is just irritating, not 'helpful'. So, *MY* advice to the "helpful" is this: Don't waste your time. k-thx. But it's still fun to read, so I won't mind if you keep doing it. [now I don't have to address this again]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: I can believe that the Russians are intentionally trying to influence/compromise things.

"you might want to make sure that the foundation is a solidly constructed one, where pests find it hard to do much damage."

sadly, even though the U.S. Constitution TRIES to make it hard for pests to do much damage, the "stacking" of the U.S. Supreme Court with extremely liberal judges essentially overrides any such attempts by "re-interpreting" it whatever way they 'feel'. It's how the liberal-lefties get what they want done. nevermind the majority, nevermind what's right, it's THEIR power grab and they're going to do what they do to grab and maintain as much power and control as they can.

[it IS the nature of gummints to do this, unfortunately, as elitists seek power and manipulate their way to the top]

(more howler downvotes, thank you)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Obaka is just angry over his "legacy"

the only reason the fingers are being pointed at Russia is that Obaka's "legacy" is threatened by a Trump presidency, basically rolling back EVERYTHING that Obaka and the Demo-Rats have been trying to shove up our as... down our throats since 2009.

And so, like most politicians, he "does the sidestep" and points fingers elsewhere, to distract media coverage away from the REAL issues...

Right now Russia is the current target for finger-pointing. Nevermind that the Demo-Rat-tic national committee, Mrs. Clinton, and "others" were likely cracked by them (that's the accusation anyway), meaning potential blackmail later on, far WORSE than interfering in elections. yeah, no security risk THERE.

So with the way Russian media has covered Mrs. Clinton, is it any surprise? I think not. Typical 'media matters' style tactics going on here. Obaka is a 'civil unrest' kinda guy, and this plays right into his strategery book.

[and the anti-Trump "howler monkey" downvotes are a badge of honor, thank you]

Russia looks out for themselves and their own best interests. If they 'interfere', that's the only reason. Personally, I think helping Trump would help _US_, but that's just my opinion, right?

'There may be no hackers' says Trump in Presidential Debate II

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

Re: Is she says the Rooskies did it ...

If the Russians *DID* do it, I'd like to buy them a round of beer!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Donald Trump is a plonker

at least Trump wants to do the RIGHT things - you know, lower tax rates, simplify the tax code by getting rid of special interest loopholes, enforce the LAW [instead of having 'special favor' grey areas decreed by executive orders], get rid of OBAKA-CARE [a SNAFU from the point it was rectally extrapolated from the bowels of HELL], and actually DEAL with ILLEGAL immigration... AND dealing with ISIS and other terrorists as they SHOULD be dealt with. And, don't forget appointing "originalist" judges to the Supreme Court. We're down by one 'Scalia' at the moment.

"Her Royal Heinous" aka "mother of lies" aka Mrs. Clinton isn't even REMOTELY correct on ANY of these policies. In fact, she wants to DOUBLE DOWN on what has been going WRONG over the last 8 years of Obaka. Talk about RUINING the country! If Mrs. Clinton gets in the white house [again], expect things to fall off the cliff, and be "locked in" for DECADES [due to Supreme Court 'justice stacking' by 'the left'].

That's the *REAL* choice, and NOT the media soap opera that's fodder for late-night comedy.

(thanks in advance for the downvotes, they're a badge of HONOR when you stand up for Conservative and Libertarian ideals)

Linus Torvalds says ARM just doesn't look like beating Intel

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: Now that ARM has been bought by a bank its future is uncertain IMO

" I doubt they'll be moving their IP <snip> to China."

maybe true, it'll most likely go to S. Korea first. THEN maybe China [or elsewhere, as appropriate].

I suspect, however, that this won't happen at LEAST for a while. Japanese employees probably cost more than the existing group in UK.. Japan is expensive when it comes to cost of employing people. It's probably MORE expensive than UK. [that would make an interesting study]

"Offshore" of engineering work is USUALLY a bad idea. Now, when it comes to actually MAKING the things, you go with the cheapest 3rd party vendor...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: ARM is not very popular as desktop 2gb

"I'm not sure - most of the grunt seems to go in the GPU these days and even 1G seems to be enough for even the most evil spreadsheets."

Maybe for Open Office, but try some "cloudy" version [google docs comes to mind] and you'll be stressing a 2G or even 4G system trying to do ANYTHING with it [as well as your bandwidth].

(facepalm for the javascript-based *CRAPWARE* that poses as a substitute for an appLICATION that runs natively on YOUR CPU without some "layer" that takes up 10 times the RAM)

I only use a (single) google doc spreadsheet because a client INSISTED upon it, and I've complained about it many times (when appropriate). I don't like waiting 2 seconds after I press 'enter' for "something to update". OK it was written by a junior-level (millenial) "programmer" who was really more of an ACCOUNTANT, but still... [what do you MEAN, your computer isn't FAST enough? Your bandwidth isn't UNLIMITED? Something WRONG with YOU! - yeah typical 'millenial' thinking, who doesn't have to increase monthly expenditures by $100 for the 'better connection', nor purchase "new" hardware at confiscatory prices on a limited budget because they're not giving you enough work to PAY! THE! RENT! and then ENCUMBER YOU with THIS... and then bitch at YOU about it! yeah, if they didn't pay me money, I'd take a hike]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Is Linus's vision really this narrow?

Linus's gripes about ARM seem to have more to do with various incompatible 'flavors' at the hardware architecture level. ARM is a CPU core that defines an instruction set. x86 defines the architecture as well, from what I can tell anyway. Though I remember having a *LOT* of trouble with a motherboard that had an NVidia chipset on it (about a decade ago), because it would only boot up a single core of a multi-core CPU under FreeBSD, and I don't know if Linux had a fix for it at that time. My solution was to get a board with an intel chipset and keep everything else [CPU, RAM], and it also forced me to get a separate video card (which turned out to be another NVidia device).

THAT is the kind of thing that drives OS developers nuts, having to support some vendor that INSISTS on NOT being 100% compatible with "a standard"... especially when there appears to be *NO* standard.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Linux has facilitated the cituation he is lamenting about

"80/20 rule" (etc.)

well, SOME of what you're saying is correct, but I think you got it backwards for other stuff...

The biggest problem with Windows has been TOO MUCH on the "20%". Except NOW they're removing that 20% and saying "do it OUR way" and taking away choices, legacy hardware support, etc.. (Win-10-nic and 2D FLATSO being the 2 worst outcomes from this).

On a related note, Linux has focused more on the 80% until recently, with a huge push to support every possible bit of hardware that exists, and NOT remove legacy hardware support while doing it.

The RT system with ".Not" - just "ew". It was a SNAFU out of the concept box. It should have NEVER been done, like disco "music" and Obaka-care. Developers took ONE look and went "W.T.F.?" and didn't play in Micro-shaft's sandbox under Micro-shaft's ridiculous rules. And, with lack of "Developers, developers, developers, developers" even the CUSTOMERS said "W.T.F." and now it's *HISTORY*.

The ".Not" initiative was the _WORST_ thing (next to Win-10-nic and Windows "Ape") that Micro-shaft EVER rectally extrapolated out of the bowels of HELL. Ballmer did it the moment he took the reigns from Bill. But I'll reserve THAT discussion for another forum...

However, you're #3 comment is RIGHT ON. "Having apps run without being retargeted for different CPUs conflicted with MS desire of a walled garden. They wouldn't be able to have a controlled App store under the "RT" model.". THAT it DOES! Though, of course, using ".Not" run-time might as well cripple your 'app' into a 'CRapp', so 'go figure' on THAT one.

Developer note: If I MUST need a VM to run my application, I'll write it in JAVA. THEN, it should run EVERYWHERE, literally, and NOT just on stupid ".Not" capable winders boxen. The fact that I don't really like Java is the only reason I haven't done this... [ok I've been forced into it for Android development, but still...]

Social media flame wars to be illegal, says top Crown prosecutor

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Ok...

"Hey stopping insulting the ghettos! They're never as bad as Twitter!"

does insulting ghettos AUTOMATICALLY make you a RACIST? What about insulting Tw[a,i]tter? Based on how _I_ usually spell it, would THAT make you a SEXIST?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: If I say go kill your self...

most trolls on the intarweb would cheer you on. plenty of THOSE outside of the UK. So what's the point of an idiotic [unenforcable] anti-speech law?

"feel good" to the constituency, perhaps?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Childcatcher

Re: chief prosecutor Alison Saunders boasted

You[all] may want to consider that if there's a law that's "being ignored", it's WORSE than prosecuting it to the fullest extent.

Reason: a society ruled by LAW (not by 'whim' or 'feel') is more stable, less prone to corruption.

I mean, just look at Obaka's non-prosecution of IMMIGRATION laws for a clear example. It's almost like "such laws" can and maybe WILL be used at some time to 'get even' with those who don't "play along" like they're supposed to, or to favor those who've contributed funds in some "expected" way... (almost like a tin-horn dictatorship, where 'anger dear leader' is a crime, punishable by whatever 'feel' dictates).

So it's like: it's a law or it's NOT. It's prosecuted or it's NOT. but make it "grey" and the abuse and corruption is likely to thrive within the 'greyness'.

[I rarely consider using the 'think of the children' icon, but hey, it fits, in snarky and more realistic ways at the same time]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"legal imposition" - good one. like calling all Lawyers 'Lyers'.

/me adds that one to "the list"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Re : As ever, age is fair game for discrimination. Kids!!

careful, you said something BAD about living in a Muslim country. Islam has special protected "you can never say anything negative about it" political correctness status, at the moment, and the Crown Prosecutor will COME! AFTER! YOU! now. [as for me I'm across the pond and give the 'digitus impudicus' to all of that, ha ha ha ha ha 1st ammendment]

Astronauts on long-haul space flights risk getting 'space brains'

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: "...Earth’s magnetosphere deflected harmful radiation particles away."

(Pavel Checkov voice): Kep-tin, the compass is spinnink like ballet dancer...

I guess they had better radiation shielding in the 22nd century.

Seriously, though, you need an earth-sized magnetic field to do the job THAT way. high velocity radiation is best blocked by mass, the denser the better [except for neutrons, which need to be thermalized and then absorbed]. So yeah, lead and borated polyethylene.

Another good shielding option is water. If you can basically put the entire "people tank" inside a water tank, it would be highly effective. If the water tank can be part of a recycling system, it wouldn't be depleted. So for a 3 year Mars mission, the crew spends MOST of their time inside of the shielded 'people tank', surrounded by a foot or more of water on all sides. Water with borax in it.

[for the unaware, boron absorbs neutrons]

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: @kain .... Not sure if serious...

another point, good sarcasm is funny no matter who you support. If a Trump supporter can't laugh at 'Hair Force One' or sending him to Mars, he needs a reality check or something. As for me, I think it's pretty damn funny. Just like calling Mrs. Clinton "Her Royal Heinous" or "mother of lies", right?

The Donald has made a characature (spelling?) of himself for years, on national media. Is it any wonder he's said one or two things (understatement) that *might* offend someone? So yeah, lots of late night material making fun of the things he's done in public. No problem there.

The only problems I have is when Trump is completely mischaracterized, and the mischaracterizations are THEN harped on as if they're truth, in an ATTEMPT at humor. But that's pretty much the case for ANYONE who isn't a leftist-communist liberal politically correct "one of them" type, these days...

In any case, if the rocket to Mars has an orange 'Trump wig' on it (painted or otherwise) I'd be laughing.

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: What problem?

Lead-foil hats, lined with borated polyethelyne. needs to be at least an inch thick.

Robots blamed for wiping 10 per cent off the value of sterling

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

bot-based currency manipulation

ya think MAYBE someone made money off of this?

nobody comes to mind... not even George Soros. He'd never do THAT, right? No, wait...

Windows updates? Just trust us, says Microsoft executive

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: How does microsoft say screw you?

Reminds me of a joke, "How do you say F.U. in New York City"

So it's "How do you say F.U. in Redmond WA" now

"Trust Us"

/me keeps hearing the old Jungle Book from the 60's in my head, with Kaa singing "Trust in meeeeee..."

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: El Reg sat down with....? Wow!

"easily 99% of you who say that Windows 10 is the last straw said that about Vista and said that about Windows 95. then you moved to Linux and then tried to listen to an mp3 or print a file or read a Word document"

etc.

I don't remember people saying _bad_ things about '95. In fact, it was 'huge popular'. it fixed a lot of problems with 16-bit applications limiting performance, etc. etc. If you must blame ANYTHING, blame Micro-shaft's crappy software architecture on the negatives [not the OS at that time, but the Office applications and things of THAT nature].

then again, they TRIED to get it right for '9x.

what I see NOW is a whole lot of "the opposite" of the way it was for '9x. '9x got a LOT of user-customization ADDED to it [now taken away].

In ANY case, what "drove me to POSIX" (not necessarily Linux) was the ".Net initiative" and the OBVIOUS "wrong direction" that was taking, from Passport to C-pound to that redonkulous monolithic PIG collectively known as ".Net runtime".

(applications load/run faster when you statically link, and with proper library organization [_not_ the latest MFC, they broke it] won't add more than 100k or so to the application's image, pathetically small on a 'modern' computer)

anyway, Micro-shafts "all eggs, one basket" thinking has resulted in MORE security craters than open source, by a very large margin, obvious based on CERTS and the constant "security patch for" updates.

And I like using FreeBSD. It's really "a developer's OS".

FBI wants to unlock another jihadist’s iPhone

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

FBI needs to stop "the lazy" and do REAL police work

The FBI just needs to stop being "the lazy" and do some REAL police work. You know, like the way things were BEFORE smart phones.

Bullying corporations into bending over and "saying hello" like a female bonobo monkey, and accepting whatever 'end around' in evidence rules that the FBI coughs up at themoment, is NOT doing things the RIGHT way.

Or maybe they just need to ASK NICE instead of bashing everything in sight with a (willing accomplice) judge's gavel...

[yeah this is about getting 'special investigative rights' and/or forcing encryption to go away]

of course, you KNOW that some non-US-ian developer will make it possible to encrypt WITHOUT Apple's help, and THEN the FBI can COMPLETELY pack sand. Their best bet: work WITH Apple, not against them.

I bet some clever tech can hook up a JTAG to the device and force decryption on all of the data using Apple's inside knowledge of the system. So maybe all the FBI needs to do is *THAT*, and play nice, and get APPROVAL from a judge to LET Apple do this, and not a commandment for Apple's legal team to object over, ORDERING Apple to COMPLY.

[and they can keep it all "quiet like" and not irritate Apple customers wanting real privacy and protection AGAINST unwanted gummint (or other) snooping]