Posts by bombastic bob

MS Task Manager turns 30: Creator reveals how a 'very Unixy impulse' endured in Windows

Re: Blow main tanks

remember, it's 2 blasts on the klaxon then "Dive, Dive", and 3 blasts then "Surface, surface, surface". Sometimes people get those backwards [even in old movies you see it].

fixing UI elements in Linux

depending on your desktop the fix for auto-hide and width is a setting and probably documented someplace that takes searching to find. I suggest grok,com, ask how to make the scrollbar wider and turn off autohide and give it the desktop and version and it'll tell you pretty explicitly

Microsoft's lack of quality control is out of control

Re: Microsoft gave up all pretext of caring about QA/QC ...

A joking rumor says Elon's starting up a company called MegaHard to rewrite all of windows using AI.

I think that'd be a GREAT idea for Wine, actually... make it 100% compatible with Windows 11 applications by re-writing the entire Wine system [for XOrg, naturally, NOT Wayland] so we can FINALLY ditch Micros~1 COMPLETELY

Re: Microsoft gave up all pretext of caring about QA/QC ...

a lot of the bloat on startup is Windows Defender and various .Net things that for some reason MUST EAT RESOURCES for the first 10 minutes or so...

Re: Microsoft gave up all pretext of caring about QA/QC ...

to add to your mention, Micros~1's QA layoffs [and general bad attitude about what CUSTOMERS actually WANTED] coincided with the release of W10.

I participated in the W10 insider program with the hopes of getting Micros~1 to change their Sinofsky-inpired ways. They FAILED.

As for terms describing their QA and customer service performance, I propose "Under-whelming Quality Concern, delivered 'as-is'."

SpaceX and Musk called on to rescue China's Shenzhou-20 crew

A bit opposite from "The Martian"

As I recall in "The Martian" the U.S. kept messing up on the supply rocket (etc.) and China (in the story line) bailed us out. [that part seemed 'forced to fit' In My Bombastic Opinion]

This time around being a bit more realistic - I say "glad to help!" "Falcons are GO!" This would be even more interesting in "Supermarionation" [I loved that show when I was a kid, watched them all when they were new. Thunderbird 3 hardly ever got to fly on a mission, though.]

I'm curious what the turnaround on a man-rated Dragon + Falcon would be from "now" to launch... guess we'll see!

Help desk boss fell for ‘Internet Cleaning Day’ prank - then swore he got the joke

Re: Prankers

Almost a prank, where software devs, all necessarily having Linux (or FreeBSD) desktop and laptop boxen and inevitably most ran the BSOD screensaver. One day CEO goes past the cubes (these were the idiotic low wall height variety, practically an open bay office with mini-walls) and sees BSOD panic screens and immediately thinks something is wrong, and gets ahold of the (one) I.T. guy who really did not know Linux that well [but he was a good net an hardware guy, and Windows server admin].

something "less than comedy" ensued that I would have laughed about until th department head got angry at us... "never run that screen saver again!" etc.

'Windows sucks,' former Microsoft engineer says, explains how to fix it

Re: Who has a choice anyway

opposite for me. I usually bring my own device running FBSD or Linux because it is IMPOSSIBLE to get things done on a windows machine.

Examole: doing embedded development on a linux OS board (like RPi for example), and I need to build, edit, and debug software on that board to develop efficiently, SO I use a Linux or FreeBSD laptop running an XOrg-based desktop (like Mate), use "xhost" to allow connecting to the laptop, and "export DISPLAY=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:0.0" on the embedded board (via ssh or serial port, whichever) then run editors like pluma with the display and input on my laptop (generally much bigger than an embedded device's display, if it even has one). And so on.

Often BOSS sees it as SO efficient he finds an older desktop for me to install Linux on, and I bring in a CD or USB drive with the latest net installer on it, and nuke windows off of the box, set it up for embedded Linux development, and leave it on 7/24 to be accessed remotely by me using an ssh tunnel back to my home office.... and so on.

Re: I watched the video. He's basically describing Linux.

True. Although there IS documentation, a lot of it is hard to find (and probably INCOMPLETE). MSDN docs used to be like reading an actual a book, where the info you needed was RIGHT THERE, but NOW it is like a circle-jerking click bait website that charges per visited link...

Re: I watched the video. He's basically describing Linux.

If it wasn't free, nobody would be using it.

Android phones are based on Linux, and iOS and OS/X both use a Mach (UNIX) kernel similar to BSD. Apple also forked the FreeBSD 5 user applications for use in OS/X, and the gnu versions in Linux are very similar.

Last I checked nobody is using Windows on phones or slabs. Only OS's REALLY being used are Android (Linux) and iOS except for a few cheapie flip phones (like mine) that are just phones.

So what were you saying about nobody using Linux...?

Re: I watched the video. He's basically describing Linux.

well at least we have a UI choice in Linux, and some choices (like Mate with TraditionalOK) are WAY better than TIFKAM!

knowing which to choose can be a bit overwhelming for n00bs...

Re: Thumbs up

assuming their network is never cracked you'll be "safe".

[Nevermind some miscreant hacker group or Micros~1 employee thumbing through everyone's photos looking for blackmail/revenge pr0n]

Re: If only there was an alternative OS

with a penguin. Nice!

Re: If only there was an alternative OS

"a common, standard GUI system that dosn't look designed by small children"

As opposed to the CRAPPY TIFKAM 2D FLATSO-etc. interface used by WINDOWS 8-11 [that looks like it was designed by small children].

I prefer Mate, thanks, with 'TraditionalOK' or similar. Cinnamon is also good last I checked, so long as you use something similar to 'TraditionalOK' on Mate.

And X11 so I can use DISPLAY and run things REMOTELY. *NO* WAYLAND!!!

[everything Adwaita SUCKS but of course GNOME-heads are trying to MS-FORCE that look on EVERYTHING for NO GOOD REASON, so including Wayland, even OSS can "get it wrong" sometimes)

Re: If only there was an alternative OS

Windkiws, starting with "Ape" (8), DOES seem to have been written by "it's OUR turn now, old man" children, from forcing everyone to do things THEIR way and injecting "big brother" into everything, putting those "applets" in "THE STORE", creating cloudy "Microsoft Login", etc. to TURNING A DESKTOP INTERFACE THAT PEOPLE LIKED into a 2D FLATTY FLATSO FLATASS TIFKAM PHONE-LIKE "1.0-ish" USER-HOSTILE INTERFACE!

Re: If only there was an alternative OS

as long as it's NOT WAYLAND, sounds good to me!

Grounded jet engines take off again as datacenter generators

Re: my thoughts too

True, like co-generation. I was thinking more in terms of using low pressure turbines to recover additional heat as electricity... i.e. "closed cycle" as I understand it.

comment system burps

oh yeah I ran into that the other day, something cloud-related probably, especially when you consider AWS's recent outage

didn't you post that already? I downvoted that one, too.

Re: Titanium

I would expect a lot of tungsten as well, for high temperature alloys.

Trump turnabout sees him re-nominate amateur astronaut Jared Isaacman to run NASA

Re: Trump did not explain what, if anything, made him change his mind.

OK all snark aside, I can explain it.

Last week (or maybe 2 weeks ago) and a bit before Elon had been posting on X about Jared being the new head of NASA, making jokes about tree climbing [related to Duffy] and saying things along the line of "wouldn't you rather have someone with actual experience in space than experience climbing trees" [paraphrased]. There were polls, and many posts, and then it went quiet.

I guess the Prez saw the logic in choosing Jared over Duffy, and NOW cares LESS about people's opinions of possible conflict of interest over just putting the right person in charge.

Win10 still clings to over 40% of devices weeks after Microsoft pulls support

or you cou8ld sell it on a site like e-bay "as-is" and someone like me would gladly use it with Linux or FreeBSD

Re: Bloat like never seen before

can you try a bootable Linux image on a USB drive to see how well that works?

Google yanks Gemma after US senator says model ‘hallucinated’ her committing crimes

Re: There is political capital to be made here.

legit criticism noted

Re: I really feel sorry for the conservatives

AI bias happens a lot. Elon has admitted to it regarding xAI aka Grok, regardless of his efforts to the contrary. But if you look hard enough for a demon under every doily, chances are you'll find one.

I'd rather see something truly worthy of scorn be taken seriously, than see people butt-hurt over edge cases.

Often I will add proactive parameters in my Grok queries, like "disregarding liberal news outlets like" [then list some] and "avoiding any kind of political bias" and "present both sides of the issue" so as to get more accurate and reliable info. It is often really interesting to see how a lot of hype and hysteria disappears that way.

Re: If Google's Gemma were an employee, it might be facing HR right now --- HR?

thanks, did not need naughty tentacle imagery in my brain. then again...

ISPs more likely to throttle netizens who connect through carrier-grade NAT: Cloudflare

Re: CGNAT is more widely used than you may think

/me tempted to nmap it but I won't, seriously!!!

Re: IPV6 over my dead salary

he.net has tutorials and a free tunnel IPv6 gateway, FYI

Re: IPv6 solution...

I also get prompts for user/pass on youtube from IPv6 - google is discriminating against us! RANT RANT RANT!!!

Re: IPv6 solution...

as long as the ports are properly firewalled, should be no problem...

Re: IPv6 solution...

I've been using IPv6 through a tunnel for over a decade...

Re: IPv6 solution...

well there are still free IPv4 to IPv6 gateways out there - I'm using one. Just sayin'.

The only problems I have discovered are at the firewall, where people might not know how to configure them properly, as all IPv6 addresses are effectively public. It would be like it was in the 90's where all IP addresses were visible to one another, and unfiltered. 'Code Red' anyone?

Debian demands Rust or rust in peace for legacy ports

Re: Linux Is Not Windows

a fork would fix it - then just keep the original apt manager code for those architectures and update the functionality as needed...

I think it's just that nobody wants to devote time to doing that.

Re: It doesn't have to be efficient

I like your thinking - C++ started out as a kind of pre-compiler that generated C code.

The problem here seems to be a lack of a rust implementation of OpenPGP on certain platforms, though, and a decision to just not support those platforms in lieu of making the library support them...

heh - nice trolling!

rusty userland

Rust lends itself to writing robust userland utilities like apt package manager stuff, assuming the code is frequently being tweeked. For things that are rarely updated, though, I think leaving them as-is would be the better choice.

Japan’s new space truck is also a temporary space lab, just worked first time

/me imagines ground based lasers that vaporize a chunk off of space junk and gives it a 'nudge' into a more ideal orbit for subsequent removal

bonus points if they can mount the lasers on the heads of sharks... Yeah, baby, YEAH!

Re: A Friday Smile

I worked at the American division for a Japanese mega-corp back in the 90's. The only grumpy guy was the HR manager, until I did some specific IT work for their department...

Re: "just worked first time"

It's more fun to set off a few fireworks beforehand to CELEBRATE the REAL launch [which seems to be working extremely well].

I hope JAXA gets a man-rated system next. "3rd source" for orbital launching of meatbags.

YouTube's AI moderator pulls Windows 11 workaround videos, calls them dangerous

Re: Its AIs all the way down

ack

From article: they watched a 17-minute video and denied the appeal in one minute.

Re: Environmental damage

not a bad argument. But we can effectively recycle those 10 boxen. I recycled a 10 box the other day.

My main server box was slowly dying. power suppy died, and I swapped in a spare but it was for a PC case, not a baby AT case. NP I sat it on top, then had the foresight to go on e-bay, found a better box to be my new server (3 prior power supplies plus original died in that thing) and ordered it ($140). It had 10 on it, refurbished. No problem, It arrived at a time when old server box was booting every 30 minutes for no apparent reason. slowly dying in other words. [I think it was approaching 20 years old, Intel Core 2 Duo, 1.8Ghz]

So arrival of former win10 hardware got a hard drive transplant and with a small amount of re-conf [needed a USB ethernet, which I had on-hand, to connect to i-net router in bridge mode; old box had a PCI ethernet for 2nd connection and this one only has PCIe], but in general was back working in a short time.

Recycling old Win10-nic boxen with FBSD and Linux is doing fine for me. I just need to deal with things like TAX SOFTWARE which IRRITATINGLY DEMANDS "the newest windoze"

Bringing this back, full circle: If I were to make a video about this, would TouTube BAN it???

International Criminal Court kicks Microsoft Office to the curb

Re: Bye, it was nice to know you

regardless of opinions about software needs vs gummint policies, the OBVIOUS elephant in the room is not political, but ECONOMICAL and pure common sense.

* Open Source equivalents are likely to have lower cost of operation

* Open source equivalents cannot be 'canceled' and thereby caused to stop working [or have a toll booth imposed, for that matter]

So for critical government agencies, it has the potential of ALL SUPPORT being "self-contained" if the need ever arises. This is just prudent planning.

I am QUITE SICK of the slow bulldozing of prior releases into a BIG PILE of SUBSCRIPTION-BASED CRAP. How long before Windows 12 is SUBSCRIPTION-ONLY???

BOFH: Saving the planet, one falsified metric at a time

Re: Usual impact

another window-related accident... *sigh*

A meaner, grumpier old Simon

he's getting old, and less tolerant of bureaucratic B.S., and has a tremendous level of confidence from all of that relevant experience...

No worries until he starts yelling at clouds.

Re: And of course ...

Fortunately, in the USA (2025), any perceived need for "green-washing" has EVAPORATED! Farmers will also enjoy NOT having CO2 pipes forcibly planted across their fields...

Re: Quite right, too

not if you bag and incinerate what's left

Re: Which side of the pond are you?

I'm sure the BOFH had some thermite standing by for just that (and other) purpose(s)... just borrow a bit, as it's easy and cheap to make more.

Re: Which side of the pond are you?

eggs are in the $3/dozen range last I looked. No more killing millions of hens because ONE of them coughed...

Re: Which side of the pond are you?

but it's been getting BETTER!!! I'm quite happy with things the way they're heading.

How do you solve a problem like Discovery?

slightly more practical post

1. Use heavy lift helicopters to move it to one of Musk's SpaceX landing barges (grok suggests 5 to 7 helicopters)

2. Float it around Florida to the Texas gulf area

3. Helicopter it back onto a waiting uber-wide trailer where it can be hauled by a typical tractor rig like an 18 wheeler

4. Clear the roads and truck it on in!

(backup is helicopter airlifts to move it to a 2nd trailer further down the road, if needed)