* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Free Windows 10 upgrade: Time is running out – should you do it?

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Surprise!

"One lovely surprise is when Win 10 decides to update for 90 minutes right in the afternoon. WTFG!"

I frequently put off updates on XBox 360. The 'yes/no' full-page thingies [that often repeat] aren't something I want interrupting my game time, and I don't want to waste OTHER time doing their blasted update downloads. And considering what some of the 'update's have added [including ADVERTISEMENT CONTENT] I think I'll pass until I have nothing better to do...

But at least I can *DECLINE* the "offer" on a 360. I can't imagine what 10 on an 'XBox One' might do to your afternoon if you REALLY wanted to play a game, but end up waiting 90 minutes or more to "update" instead.

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: 'Prettier'? you meant 7, right?

"GWX, surely you mean the "Admiral Ackbar" update..."

Heh - "IT'S A TRAP!"

I should start calling it 'Admiral Ackbar update' from now on

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Mint 18 + WINE

"As long as that lets me use Office (2007 or 2010) then I don't do anything that needs Windows."

have you considered 'Open Office' or 'Libre Office' ? I have yet NOT seen anything (other than old MS Access stuff I used to do a decade-and-a-half ago) that requires a Microsoft product like 'Office'...

I had Office '97 which worked ok until I had an XP box with >1G RAM, and then a bug kept it from printing. Trying *FIX* that bug broke other things. Dumped Office '97 for Open and/or Libre Office suites, which matched what I was already doing on FreeBSD and Linux. All of my template-based documents (like address labels, envelope addressing) worked perfectly. Never looked back.

bombastic bob Silver badge

"In what world is it acceptable for a vendor to remove features from a product, post-purchase?

or add NEW *unwanted* ones (like spyware and GWX in W7)

or CHANGE! THE! CONTRACT! (like their *new* EULAs)?

bombastic bob Silver badge

"So you're to young for all the shit they were doing in the 90s? Like ensuring Windows borked DR-DOS and secret APIs etc..."

ah, yes. the 'secret API's. I scanned their DLLs for things that weren't documented, because I'd heard about it, and saw "GlobalHandleNoRIP" which became EXTREMELY useful in a buggy environment, to validate global handles before you attempt to lock them. Kept those pre-blue-screen 'Unhandled Exception' dialog boxes from interrupting my application. And the reasons FOR that sort of thing were *rarely* due to MY code...

(later, a lawsuit forced Micro-shaft to DOCUMENT things like that, because MS Word used these things internally for the SAME reasons *I* did - stability! 'Unfair advantage' was the justification, and so Micro-shaft had to document them for EVERYBODY)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

"On the other hand, Windows Millennium...now we're talking. :)"

I love it when the obvious facetiousness gets a significant number of downvotes. It's like a badge of honor.

bombastic bob Silver badge

'Prettier'? you meant 7, right?

"A simple example is the new UWP calculator; it may be prettier than the old accessory, but it is slower to launch, takes more screen space without advantage..."

Uh, wait. 'Prettier than the old accessory'. SERIOUSLY????

2D FLUGLY is *NOT* *PRETTIER*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You forget about the total eye candy that is Windows 7. *THAT* is "prettier".

2D FLUGLY is JUST! PLAIN! UGLY!!!

You know, like Windows 1.01 was: flat, crayon-art, etch-a-sketch quality, *BARELY* better than an MS-DOS 'GUI-like screen' with ASCII graphics (say 'QBASIC').

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win101

as opposed to that really nice screen from the article, despite it having fewer things to put checkboxes in: it just LOOKS BETTER

https://regmedia.co.uk/2016/07/22/command.png?x=648&y=393&infer_y=1

the image on the RIGHT is CLEARLY more aesthetic, more pleasent. Micro-shaft's move towards fat-finger-friendly screen-real-estate-wasting 2D-FLUGLY EXCREMENT was one of the WORST things ever invented by the Ballmer/Turner/Sinofsky "3 Stooges", killers of Microsoft's image, quality, and future.

No _WONDER_ they have to SHOVE! IT! UP! OUR! ASSES! with GWX!

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: bashing

"Strangely enough I get a Unix like experience on my Linux boxen, and the OS still free after the point Win 10 becomes non free"

Windows 10 was never 'free' - you pay with your privacy and future enslavement to whatever forced updates are coming down the pike.

but yeah, you could run Linux or one of the BSDs and get a TRUE "UNIX-like" experience, or run Cygwin and get something similar on _ANY_ version of windows, or use Micro-shaft's 'Embrace, Extend, Extinguish' version and get something FAKE that has "issues".

Silicon Valley's contribution to the US Republican Convention: Gayness

bombastic bob Silver badge

"JFK may be a Democrat icon but was he really liberal? "

Actually, No. JFK and Nixon were friends, and actually agreed on MOST issues. JFK was a CONSERVATIVE Democrat, probably one of the last [along with his brother, Robert Kennedy].

For example, JFK believed in tax rate CUTS, and his policies went into effect after his death, in 1964, causing an economic boon. JFK was ALSO a cold war 'Anti-Communist' kinda guy, like Nixon. But JFK's big issue was civil rights, as I recall, which may have differentiated him significantly from Nixon (that, and the press LOVED him) and got him elected. As I recall, Nixon later embraced the civil rights issue, which helped him win against Humphrey (and Wallace) in 1968. (many of the hippies really liked Nixon in 1968).

Civil Rights issues really started in the 1800's. The Republican party formed out of the Abolitionist movement, and Lincoln was the first Republican president. Democrats, on the other hand, heavily promoted "state's rights" when it comes to slavery. And the REAL Demo-Rat party surfaced as LBJ created "the great society", a means by which they can buy 'poor minority' votes INDEFINITELY, by giving away other people's money (i.e. higher taxes), but not enough given away to create wealth among the poor; the policies deliberately give away just enough to "keep them in their place" and buy their votes (with plenty of fear-mongering that Republicans HATE them and will stop the gravy train if they don't vote Demo-Rat).

bombastic bob Silver badge

I love how the author implies that acceptance of gay marriage is a prerequisite for acceptance of gays period. They are different issues, regardless of what the Gaystapo says. It is possible to accept gays, and still consider the ancient institution of Marriage to be intended for the raising of children and not just a societal label that all have rights to.

Well, there's this former politician, a Republican, who's on the air with a radio talk show in my area. He's also an openly gay guy. Demo-rats actually tried to use that AGAINST him, stressing things about "his BOYfriend" in political debates, etc.. Yet Carl DeMaio is VERY conservative on most issues. On social issues, he's kinda 'libertarian', which I think is the better position to take. And he's NOT "an activist" by any means. And I suspect that OTHER members of the Republican party (who happen to be gay) are the same way, and would EQUALLY get MY vote.

The thing worth re-pointing out: It was a DEMO-RAT that kept HARPING on his Republican opponent being gay. That Demo-Rat became mayor of San Diego (Bob Filner). THEN, he got ousted for being a sexual harassment predator. It shows you what kind of guy he is.

The only problem with the 'gay' issue (that I see) is how IN YOUR FACE the activists are. The moralists (their only opposition) are in the minority. Most people (as I see it) take a 'live and let live' stance on this. They don't want their OWN lives disrupted, but think that others shouldn't have THEIR lives disrupted either. So we don't need 'in your face' activism, OR changing the definition of what 'marriage' is to suit 1.8% of the population. [I support Civil Unions for equal legal protection and so did Arnold Swarzenegger when he was Gov. of California].

Why gummints got involved in the whole 'marriage' thing is beyond me. It is possible for gummints to get OUT of it. Just call ANY marriage a 'civil union' for legal purposes, STOP ABusing the tax code by using different rates for married vs single, and basically ELIMINATE the "grievances" that the gay marriage issue is trying to resolve. Then nobody has to be 'forced' to accept anything they don't like. People can MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS.

And when it comes to child custody and support issues, actual marriage is not even required in the legal dispute, at least not in California. So gummint involvement in marriage, including the determination of who can marry and who cannot, is just an IRRITANT. It's just not needed.

I'm perfectly happy, as a Republican, with welcoming and recognizing the 'LGBTQ' community (as so-named in Trump's speech), and welcoming them into the party. But I'd expect them to act more like CONSERVATIVES, in that they're "not activists" about it.

Worth pointing out: the 'moralists' aren't CONSERVATIVES. They are 'activists' in their own way. Conservatives seek to work with things as they are and NOT make radical changes. Activists, on the other hand (and I include the 'moralist' activists in this), want nothing BUT 'radical changes'. So openly accepting and acknowledging 'LGBTQ' people is a good step forward, without the 'radical' element you would see in the Demo-Rat party. I think it was done appropriately, without the usual one-sided activism you see from the Demo-Rats.

Most cultures in this world are in agreement with Republicans on this issue, regardless of how the press tries to make it appear the opposite.

In fact, the USA today is one of the most TOLERANT nations with respect to 'LGBTQ', and SHOULD be. If you look at Obaka's favorite religion, Islam, you'll find a LOT of hate in there, and nations that embrace Shariah would (obviously) NOT treat 'LGBTQ' people well. Neither did the Nazis (pink triangle) back in WW2. Something to think about.

It falls under the argument that 'most people are really conservative', which is why Republican candidates need to stop leaning to the left after the primaries, and instead SELL CONSERVATISM to the 'undecided'. And, I bet Trump will say ON MESSAGE without deviating at all.

Microsoft to rip up P2P Skype, killing native Mac, Linux apps

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

"The Cloud" is *SO* overrated!

Nothing like "single point of failure" (consisting of multiple nodes) to screw up reliability. Free P2P was one of the coolest features that Skype had... [I used to pay for skype access for certain kinds of long distance calls, but not any more - it has been YEARS, in fact, since I did that]

"The Cloud" - _SO_ overrated. even 'google docs' hasn't been immune to widespread outages.

Firefox to banish hidden Flash files – and kill off sneaky ad snoopers

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: BBC video still Flash here

I think firefox used to have a global setting that let you determine whether or not flash COULD be enabled. There WAS a web page for youtube to (by default) play in HTML5...

https://www.youtube.com/html5

it has some browser compatibility tests on it. might be helpful.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Flash

"Java is the "plugin from hell". Flash is a distant second."

thumbsup from me. And I assume that's JAVA, not javascript, though javascript _IS_ the cancer that kills "teh intarwebs". 300k+ for freaking jquery or whatever OTHER garbage-script that could be done with style sheets or good-old-fashioned-html. YUCHHH!

Microsoft ordered to fix 'excessively intrusive, insecure' Windows 10

bombastic bob Silver badge

"Microsoft will release an updated Privacy Statement"?? How about Microsoft get rid of Satya Nadella and perhaps hire someone else who has the vision and the skills to lead this company.

you and I should submit our resumes

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: To think that...

"and with so many Linux distros being infect with SystemD I've move to VectorLinux which is based on Slackware."

you can always use FreeBSD or one of the other BSDs. I do.

(ghostbsd has a nice live DVD version you can boot and install from)

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Rather Late....

"Why not just get a Windows tablet and install Ubuntu on it?"

at least that way you'd have a choice of desktops, from Unity (*shudder*) to Mate or even KDE.

CHOICE - something that Microsoft no longer understands [unless it is THEIR choice]

that, and the hoovering of our personal info for their profit.

After Monday's landing, SpaceX wants to do it in triplicate

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Titusville is a s***hole

"These are the same people that complain about a lack of high-paying space jobs now that the Shuttle is gone, yet they complain about sonic booms from SpaceX."

clueless, yeah

"So I got to see a rocket launch, and 10 minutes later, I also got to see a rocket landing. Great!"

sci fi authors of the past should be clawing their way out of their graves to watch something like that in real life. So many old sci fi books written where rockets landed on their tail. And it took SpaceX to actually make it happen - on a regular basis, anyway.

bombastic bob Silver badge

"I doubt there will be any serious challenge to this"

never. underestimate. the UNMITIGATED GALL. of a BUNCH of FLAMING ACTIVISTS. to *RUIN* a GOOD thing like SpaceX, through the COURTS, with RIDICULOUS claims, particularly environmental ones, which ultimately ENRICH THE LAWYERS.

One such L[AW]YER in the San Diego area is INfamous for having abused the legal system to turn a man-made oceanic swimming area known as "the children's pool" into a CESSpool for breeding sea lions (that decided to just 'take over' because NOBODY stopped them), that comes complete with the foul stench that can't even be cleaned up because, environmentalism.

So I'm sure SOMEONE will find some "endangered" flea or brine shrimp, or make some ridiculous touchy-feely claim regarding dolphins or sea turtles that SOMEHOW impedes SpaceX from having a landing platform. SOOooooo predictable.

Microsoft tweaks TCP stack in Windows Server and Windows 10

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Of course...

"The Linux IP stack has had all these and more since 1976"

Looks like nobody got the humor. and you got more downvotes than me. NOW I'm envious...

(/me points out Linux was invented in 1990's, but the UNIX stack would've existed back then...)

At one time NT had an implementation of the BSD stack, with appropriate copyright statements in their documentation. They should've stuck with that, and tracked the BSDs.

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Took their time

Being less agressive during periods of high latency was specifically mentioned

(from article)

"LEDBAT will stop Windows competing aggressively for bandwidth during times of high latency"

yes. it's ABOUT TIME on THAT one... not like I hadn't specifically complained directly to them about that OVER A YEAR AGO (and others as well).

it's probably the WORST thing that Micro-shaft does with their forced updates: DOMINATE your intarweb connection with WHATEVER SCHTUFF *THEY* want to use it for, at a time of *THEIR* choosing, even if you're watching streamed media content. OOPS - interruption - because, Micro-shaft.

An anniversary to remember: The world's only air-to-air nuke was fired on 19 July, 1957

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: ICBMs was the end of air to air nukes etc

"Once ICBMs become common, it was excepted that shooting them down was not an option, so "air to air nukes" etc stop being made."

In the world of anti-submarine warfare, something called 'SUBROC' was invented in about the same general time frame, to take out a ballistic missile submarine that was about to shoot its missiles. The principle was the same: large blast area, large kill zone. you just had to be 'close'. Sadly, shooting one was almost a guaranteed suicide mission...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUM-44_SUBROC

however, like you pointed out, ICBMs made bombing planes obsolete, so air-air nukes were unnecessary (and impractical). And things *like* SUBROC were eventually abandoned.

/me thinks: "Nuke 'em 'till they glow, then shoot 'em in the dark."

If managing PCs is still hard, good luck patching 100,000 internet things

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: The way round this is

" ... the "things" should simply have a secure transport layer config ... "

And that's where it all falls down again...

yeah, theyd probably use MODBUS over TCP or something similar at the local site, for all of the sensors and control devices, then a process on the MODBUS control thingy to either transfer data to the cloud, or allow a cloud-based process to query the data from the 'central' thing.

If the 'central' thing were properly designed, and the TCP to device connections properly isolated, you wouldn't have a problem. Good luck with THAT happening, though...

unless you can IPSEC the MODBUS stuff [probably not], then it's just 'in the clear' and anyone/thing can access the devices, once you have access to the private LAN with all of them.

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Oil Rigs

"They are still thinking in basic 2-tier client/sensor-central server/processing terms. When 'cloud' needs to be more of an n-tiered 'cached' processing architecture."

when I see the 'tier' word I keep thinking a bunch of hype from the noughties, when the "3 tier solution" was seen as somehow 'inferior' to a 4-tier or 5-tier, like "more tiers" made it better...

Windows 10 a failure by Microsoft's own metric – it won't hit one billion devices by mid-2018

bombastic bob Silver badge

analysis of the CEO and management style

"MS as a corporation are too large and don't listen. What is the point in having a 'feedback' program if you are going to ignore the most asked for features ?"

(then comments about bullying-style management at Micro-shaft)

(then a reply)

"Your analysis of the CEO and management style is spot-on."

I tend to agree. Micro-shaft forgot 'Business 101' "The CUSTOMER is always right." I tried to remind them back in the 'insider' days, but they threatened to ban me over my writing style. Go figure. Maybe they just don't like 'El Reg' over there, and my comments reminded them of it (heh).

Ballmer left a year or so ago, isn't that right? He's been followed by Keven Turner, their former COO.

In an El Reg thread I suggested that Turner's presence seemts to correspond to MANY of the EPIC FAILS at Micro-shaft. Some were pointed out in the article as well. There's Vista, "Ape" (8.x) where firing Sinofsky was merely symbolic. They *KEPT* the *2D* *FLUGLY* and "tilish" stupidity (the things that made 'Ape' so ugly and unusuable, in my opinion). *WHO* over at Micro-shaft *FELT* (not thought) that *THAT* was a *GOOD* thing? Well, I bet it was KEVIN TURNER! And WHO does anyone guess MIGHT have been behind GWX? Well, I bet it was KEVIN TURNER! Finally the proverbial dung hit the proverbial fan and spewed all over the walls and everyone/thing in between, and "the board" no doubt said "we gotta get RID of this guy" so they 're-organized' to avoid having a "shake-up" in the company cause a STOCK PRICE FREEFALL. And it worked.

But we still have 2D FLUGLY Win-10-nic with its adware, spyware, and [apparently soon to come as a few have accurately predicted] SUBSCRIPTION-ONLY RENTAL FEES!

This of course has gone WAY BEYOND what anyone could have imagined in 2005 when Kevin began to do his self-destructive changes at Micro-shaft. And Ballmer is to be blamed for GOING ALONG WITH IT.

Kevin is apparently an ASSHAT to work for (employees reviewing one another? to determine BONUSES? Can you say RIVALRY and BACKSTABBING?), and according to the 'El Reg' articles, VERY aggressive. I might even agree with "bullying" as a management style, as pointed out by the original poster of this topic [that I named].

Blame where blame belongs: the captain of the ship, and his first mate, and his engineering officer, all SCREWED THE POOCH on this one. The engineer (Sinofsky) was fired first. Then, the captain (ballmer) resigned, leaving the 1st mate (Kevin Turner) securely at his post, which was the key to the continued failure. No doubt he's really good at sweet-talking his boss (Nadella) into the SAME! KINDS! OF! STUPIDITY! and maybe even GREATER stupidity than before. And so Nadella goes along with it, and wrecks the ship. AGAIN.

"How did this happen?" Well, DUH...

(sorry if TLDR)

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: I'd add

"Easier still. Have /home on its own partition & don't reformat it. Same with /opt & maybe /usr/local."

also true. thanks for pointing it out. (see how easy a system restore or version upgrade is with a POSIX system? AND you get to keep your SETTINGS!)

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Sure pal.

"Please, enlighten us, I could do with a laugh today."

to be honest, the measurements I've seen (and some that I've done) show that loading an application is (generally) slightly faster with Win-10-nic than with 8.x - but at a cost, of course. Win-10-nic has a lot of 'background cruft' that spawns whenever it wants to. [I've seen this kind of behavior in 7, but only within the first few minutes after bootup]. Also, Win-10-nic has a *NASTY* habit of "pegging" the CPU meter for no good reason, typically when one "the METRO" app(sic) is waiting on another "the METRO" app(sic) and I doubt THAT problem has been addressed since I measured it over a year ago. (it appears to do with 'spinning' in a loop within the 'Universal' or 'RT' libraries while one app waits for a response to whatever command or communication it sent - the 'spinning' consumes CPU cycles, forces the OS to constantly switch to a "non-idle" mode, and heats up the CPU unnecessarily, wasting electricity and wearing out fan motor bearings).

'Faster' claims are rediculous anyway. "less inefficient" might hold water...

(and that piggy 'paranoid cached' registry is JUST! AS! BAD! AS! EVAR! in Win-10-nic, if not *WORSE* - 'paranoid cacheing' is when you re-re-read something ANYWAY, even though your hard drive data is 'in the cache', because it *might* have changed. Outside of the cache? unlikely. But watch hard drive activity when you load applications. They're too STUPID to allow the registry to be properly cached. It must be physically read/written and slow everything down. Even with SSD it's a time waste, but I don't have one of those, so it becomes OBVIOUS, and that goes DOUBLE for when it's in a VM)

the pathetic nature of win-10-nics inefficient internals, and 8.x's slightly MORE inefficient internals, makes me wanna cry - but I'll laugh at it ANYWAY.

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Perhaps ....

"They might not have been able to compete on free-as-in-beer but if they'd cut prices to be affordable they could have competed on quality."

What's Red Hat and Suse's model? they seem to be doing fine. SCO could have done *THAT*. Then they'd be on par with RH, Suse, and any other commercial Linux distro. RH even competes AGAINST ITSELF by offering Fedora for free. Yet, there they are, still in business.

I'm a Debian fan, myself. I think the package system is better than RPM but that's just me, and use both Ubu (semi-commercial) and Mint when the occasion requires it. But my main desktop is FreeBSD. Designing everything for "build from source" (even it if would take 4 days to re-build everything from source) makes it a DEVELOPER'S platform. And that just makes the point that it's individual CHOICE on the POSIX side, with lots of available "flavors" to suit your needs.

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: I'd add

"In place upgrades are the La Brea tar pit for operating systems."

the beauty of Linux is that clean-installing the new, if you back things up properly, is a pretty easy thing to do, and you can keep all of your personal settings by tarballing /home and just re-installing the latest versions of whatever you had installed before.

been there, done that a few times. also works when cloning onto a new box.

yeah try doing THAT with all of the registry cruft. good luck, heh.

(for servers you can manually merge /etc and so on, but I'm referring to user workstation type installs)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: The sad thing is that Windows 10 is great and adoption would have (snip too long)

"Windows 10 is much better than Windows 8 and 8.1, and is much faster than Windows 7 on multi-core machines."

*FACEPALM*

"Ape" is demonstrably slower than 7, and Win-10-nic is barely "as fast" as 7 and slower for MANY things. And it's 2D FLUGLY. And it has adware+spyware. And it doesn't have a proper start menu (it has a 'start thing' instead). And all that "the METRO" cruft. yuchhh.

And the Microsoft Logon with it's anti-privacy EULA, which is practically ARM-TWISTED onto your desktop, is probably the WORST part. It's how they can track you EVERYWHERE.

but I think the 2D FLUGLY is the worst part. It's so distracting (in a bad way), it harms my productivity. Good 'feng shui' of the workplace *EXCLUDES* Win-10-nic.

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Bet they assumed Windows Phone contributing a few hundred million

"Microsoft continued to putting out the same tired stuff that looked and acted like it was designed in 2001"

and _THEN_ they release Windows "Ape", and it looks like it was designed in 1985...

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win101

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product

"The penguin struggles to reach 4% market share with a free product."

because of very little *MARKETING* effort. Win-10-nic, on the other hand, is nothing BUT market-hype and "you must accept this upgrade" shoving it up our as...down our throats.

Imagine what it would BE like if some SERIOUS MARKETING were done with Linux, from computer makers PROMINENTLY advertising their Linux-equipped computers, to software makers GLADLY announcing their new LINUX version! (sorta like when they announced their WINDOWS version back in the early 90's). Yeah, THOSE were they days, right?

MARKETING is all Linux needs to win the desktop platform. It's already WAY better than Win-10-nic or "Ape". Maybe even better than 7...

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Bet they assumed Windows Phone contributing a few hundred million

"The only thing that will let them EVER get to a billion devices is quitting selling Windows 7 and stopping updates for it in early 2020. Until that end date for Windows 7 forces enterprises to get serious about upgrading to Windows 10 in 2019, they won't reach a billion."

Shhhhhhhh... don't give them ANY ideas, K? someone with windows 10 might read it, and the spyware could tip off someone in the Halls of Redmond. I know they don't listen to GOOD ideas, but BAD ones seem to make it through... I once joked about "what's next, ads in the Start Menu?" on a Microsoft forum. Next thing you know... [sorry sorry sorry]

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Perhaps ....

"They did not want to re-learn."

not a BAD thing... re-learn takes time, time = money which costs more to the business, PLUS productivity is lost, and you don't make a profit, and don't get raises/bonuses. yeah.

NOW, if Micro-shaft could make the case [which they can NOT] that productivity IMPROVES, and ease of use IMPROVES [which it does NOT] with Win-10-nic, they'd have NO PROBLEM [in fact, I would probably want it if such things were true, aside from the 2D FLUGLY which I hate].

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Amazing

"It's like they've managed to shove their heads up into their asses so deeply that they've created the worlds first human-shaped mobius strip."

or an inverse ouroboros (you know instead of a snake swallowing its own tail, it's a man's 'tail' 'swallowing' his head... oh, whatever)

One in five consumers upgraded to Win10 for free instead of buying a PC

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: child requested a Linux installation

"Which Linux? Distro fragmentation doesn't help OEMs"

if you can install ONE kind of Linux, you can install ANY. not hard to download an ISO and re-do the install, assuming that the drivers aren't proprietary in any way. I purchased 2 'netbooks' for a customer project and installed debian on both of them (one being a backup of the other). It came with some crippled console-only Linux, but at least I knew that they would work WITH Linux. I booted up the debian installer, and everything worked as expected, from wifi to bluetooth. [and for the customer project, it needed BOTH of these].

(had they not come WITH Linux, they may not have been 'linux capable' without a lot of extra effort)

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: child requested a Linux installation

"Indeed. It's time for OEMs and retailers to sit up and take notice, and start selling PCs with a Linux installation instead of Windows."

this needs 'Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers' to get on board, too. But the way Micro-shaft has been _TREATING_ Developers these days, erecting tollbooths (i.e. certification requirements), changing the rules (".Not", Silverlight, WinRT, 'Universal'), and basically RUINING the platform, SMART developers will read the writing on the wall and start creating TRULY 'universal' appLICATIONS, which can run on Linux as well. Gtk, Qt, wxWidgets - these all help you do this sort of thing. But developers need to be CONVINCED, or else they'll just look at "bottom line, now" and continue to code for 'windows only' using Micro-shaft's "windows only" stuff, INCLUDING the use of 'shared stuff' (like ".Not") that is SPECIFICALLY 'not licensed for other than a microsoft operating system'. [so first to go, any ".Not" dependencies, or depending on ANY microsoft technology, for THAT matter]

It'll take some marketing effort to make this work. But it *CAN* work.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Once again. We have passed peak PC.

"The PC as a piece of hardware in peoples homes is - for the large part - obsolete and irrelevant."

Uh, no. NOT obsolete. People generally don't use PCs for the same things they use "devices" for. I think most people would struggle with playing a high resolution PC game or doing anything but "simplified" tax forms on anything OTHER than a PC or notebook.

But machines from 10 years ago often do "those things" as well as NEW ones. THAT is the point. SALES are being measured, then interpreted as "market penetration". This is a complete FALLACY. The number of existing (in use) PCs is HUGE.

According to THIS:

https://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php

The total number of Android and iOS based systems is around 41% (I added them up). The rest are either PC or Mac. So maybe ~60% of "devices" that run web browsers are PCs or Macs? It's something to consider. (a small number are probably game consoles, but it was small enough not to be broken out).

regardless of SALES, there's still a HUGE user base of the PC. It's not "going away".

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Why would they have bought a new PC?

"Only a masochist would have stuck with Windows 8."

or down"up"graded a 7 machine to Win-10-nic.

It's *REALLY* about perception, as the original poster of this topic (sort of) pointed out when he said "Would it have broken if MS hadn't decided to offer a free upgrade?"

that's the point. the EXISTING computer is PERCEIVED to be as good as a new one. So why buy a new one? THAT is where the market reality is, at the moment.

a) no more Moore's Law causing next year's machine to be 50% faster than this year's

b) Windows "Ape" (8.x) and Win-10-nic are generally NOT perceived as "improvements" over 7 and earlier (except by the MASOCHISTS)

c) getting a better hard drive or more RAM is CHEAPER, especially important during a slumpy economy

And all of this adds up to "no clear reason to get a NEW computer". A decent re-conditioned one can be pretty nice, too. I recently got a reconditioned 7 Pro box for $120 on e-bay, and it works really really really well as a 'windows workstation' for doing accounting and things like that. Many other similarly priced computers were available. I specifically wanted 7 Pro, of course, so it was a major selling feature that YOU! MAY! NOT! GET! WITH! A! NEW! COMPUTER!

Ban ISPs from 'speeding up' the internet: Ex-Obama tech guru

bombastic bob Silver badge

why can't I pay for "better service" ?

Here's a thought that NOBODY ever mentions: why CAN'T I pay for "better service" if I can AFFORD it ? Where's the advantage of working hard and accumulating LOTS of money?

Actually, if I had a super-fat fiber line run from the nearest internet hub directly to my house, I COULD have that. but then my neighbors would NOT have that. And some dumbass would scream "Thats not fair" and FORCE ME to "share it". At least, that's how it seems...

(and I wish I _did_ have "that kind of money" - instead I have crappy DSL that barely gets 500kbits these days, even after the phone company re-built my phone line to deal with noise and frequent dropouts)

It's not our fault we don't hire black people, says Facebook

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Hiring laws

unfortunately, demographics are used as EVIDENCE in discrimination lawsuits. So unless there was a lack of applications filed for a particular job by people of a particular race, it COULD hurt FaceBarph to have a lack of employees that are more a representative sampling of "normal demographics".

then again, there are more black people and hispanic people and S.E. asian-descendent people in specific areas of the USA than in others. You know, 'neighborhoods'. Areas surrounding Face-barph's office should be 'demographically analyzed' before any accusations are made... as well as an examination of the applications that were submitted.

bombastic bob Silver badge

"People only hire people that remind themselves of... themselves. "

I disagree. the purpose of a business is PROFIT. Therefore, you hire the person who will MAKE THE MOST MONEY FOR THE COMPANY. Unless the employee is a flaming ASSHAT, is VERY likely to sue you for some B.S. reason [i.e. an 'issues' person and it's obvious], has a poor attitude towards others, or smells like a sewer in the interview, chances are NONE of the characteristics that are so often touted in 'diversity' arguments will even be looked at for a SECOND.

Not if the company wants to MAKE MONEY, anyway. And yeah, "Mr. Issues" probably won't get hired because he's already advertising the desire to SUE YOU at the drop of a hat. And so on.

I guess walking into an interview with an attitude OTHER than "how can I help you potential customer" isn't going to help you later.

(then again I have been a contractor for EVAR and have an actual interview with a potential 'customer' soon...)

bombastic bob Silver badge

"How many poor people from working class areas do they hire?"

hopefully, NO MORE than are the 'best qualified' for the positions they apply for. And when I say 'best qualified' it _EXCLUDES_ race, sex, or any other "has nothing to do with the job" characteristic.

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: So what you're saying is...

"hire more people based entirely on the colour of their skin?"

it's what the 'affirmative action' weenies on "the left" would say, yeah, but Faceb[itch,ook] isn't practicing the kind of thing it probably (read: no doubt) preaches. Instead, they appear to be hiring on the basis of JOB SKILLS, which is what ANY responsible company would do (normally).

Perhaps Charles Barkley's take on "things of this nature" is the CORRECT explanation:

http://www.inquisitr.com/1563826/charles-barkley-unintelligent-black-community-holds-back-successful-minorities/

And if he's right, the relative lack of 'minority employees' at FB is mostly "self-inflicted", i.e. "not whitey's fault" nor outright racial discrimination in hiring.

just sayin'

Microsoft silently kills dev backdoor that boots Linux on locked-down Windows RT slabs

bombastic bob Silver badge

not long before RT slab-tops are completely worthless

The RT slab-tops had at LEAST a chance at being useful, if they could run Linux... but now they have NO worth at ALL.

I pity anyone that was suckered into buying one of those...

I remember the 'secure boot' fiasco, and how Micro-shaft ASSURED us that for x86, you would be able to DISABLE the 'secure boot' and load "a legacy OS" onto a windows-logo certified box. But, NOT SO with the ARM-based boxen. We have to wonder *why* this was... and I think we're seeing some of that coming back like a turd that won't flush.

Facebook deleted my post and made me confirm pics of my kids weren't sexually explicit

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Topic

exactly. who needs it? USENET is FREE. Or, if you were creative enough, you could set up your own web site on github and do 'whatever' with it. Or rent a space and NOT have to deal with `echo "FaceBook" | sed 's/ook/itch/'` policies.

Linux cloudy tie ups: SUSE and Microsoft, Canonical and Pivotal

bombastic bob Silver badge

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

I don't think this plan has EVER changed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extinguish

IoT puts assembly language back on the charts

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Stop, just stop

"Java is not 3 times more in demand than C#"

*sniff* *sniff* - smells like a Microsoft Shill

I mentioned C-pound already, and that ".Not" _thing_ that goes with it. It deserves it's "under 5%" ranking on TIOBE.

whereas, the ENTIRE point was that IoT and other micro-controller-based projects *DEMAND* the kinds of low-level coding that assembly language lets you do. And if you're mixing inline assembler with your C code, it's the same *kinds* of coding as pure assembler [except you now get to deal with some of the quirky syntax things that 'inline' forces you to deal with].

explained HERE for AVR processors:

http://www.nongnu.org/avr-libc/user-manual/inline_asm.html

it takes the *right* kind of coder to deal with this kind of thing, yeah

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Assembly Language?

"I can't see its relevance to run-anywhere processor/platform independence."

yeah, I guess you'll just have to continue coding C-pound for ".Not". Which was STILL under 5% on the TIOBE index, from what I can tell.

On a related note, really good C code is a close second to tiny assembler code for microcontrollers. but sometimes you have to at LEAST do inline assembly, especially to take advantage of some special instructions (like in a bootloader, flashing NVRAM - did this for a project that ended up on github, XMega port for Arduino IDE).

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Assembly is OK, but...

"but only if you've got at least five years of hands-on experience with Agile DevOps. As a service. In a Docker container. "

'What Color is your Parachute?' indeed... gotta find a way to get your resume to the HIRING MANAGER, an individual that understands enough about software and engineering to recognize talent, even when the resume doesn't have the "buzz words" that H.R. weenies live to screen by, or a 4 year degree (even in something irrelevant). "Wow, that guy has a basket-weaving degree! I bet he makes a GREAT programmer!"

smaller companies who don't have H.R. departments are your best bet, anyway, especially for contractors.

Linus Torvalds in sweary rant about punctuation in kernel comments

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: RSI ?

"Typing // means less typing fatigue than /* */ . The slash is directly accessible on US keyboards, the asterisk requires shift. That alone should decide the issue."

that, and people wearing wrist-braces from carpal tunnel syndrome.