Posts by bombastic bob

Star Trek's Enterprise turns 50 and still no sign of a warp drive. Sigh

Re: As a side note

"an episode of ST:TNG, in which Data opens the show by playing cards with Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking."

that was a great episode. I miss STNG [nobody plays the reruns any more]

My guess is that there are several possible explanations as to WHY we don't have things like warp drive and practical fusion reactors and things like that...

a) space aliens "holding us back" for our own good [had to get that over with, heh]

b) wealthy/powerful elitists (like Soros) fearing a loss of power and control, shifting gummint policies and money accordingly to maintain power/control. After all, if we can just leave earth and go to space to get away from *THEM*, they'll lose the monopoly they have over our lives...

c) scientists paid to "do research", not "get results" (think of the Manhattan project, which was all about THE RESULTS, and how quickly atomic energy became an integral pat of our society)

d) all of the above.

hey, it's possible, ya know? I think 'c' is the most likely candidate, though. history backs me up on THAT one.

Ten-year-old Windows Media Player hack is the new black, again

Re: Windows media non-player

"Ubuntu to the rescue!"

OT I was a bit disappointed when I installed Mint 18 Mate (based on Ubu) the other day [to do 'droid dev for a customer project] and *ALL* of the built-in window decoration themes were FLATSO versions. SERIOUS disappoint. I had to search around to figure out how to get non-FLATSO looking min/max/close buttons. It's still possible, thankfully, just not pre-configured. I like bulbous buttons in my window title bar, not FLATSO. My desktop is NOT a feely-slab. [if I want a feely-slab I can get a 'droid one for cheap; they definitely have their use - like being a debug slave for the project - but I prefer my desktops to LOOK like desktops, not like 30" phones]

but yeah, in ubu you STILL have a choice. it's just getting a bit more difficult to choose what I want.

Re: Wait, Windows has a media player?

windows prior to Win-10-nic had one, yes. Now I think you have to BUY one, or tolerate ads, or something... or download/install VLC.

in the insider preview, I reported a bug where the metro video player couldn't get aspect ratios right with MKV files, and had sucky video performance [especially compared to VLC]. Solution, get rid of the metro media player. ha ha ha ha ha. The best part is the screen shots I used to report the bug, which I still get a snicker fit over [it's a harmless screen shot comparison for an anime that for SOME reason was quietly removed from tvtropes for no good reason, other than the possibility of SOME people's perception of it, even though it was a 'trope maker' in a couple of cases, and uproariously funny]. I smile with an evil grin. Because I know how SOME people over at politically correct micro-shaft would see that...

Related, has anyone considered whether or not the infected torrents were submitted for download DELIBERATELY in order to entrap the people that download them? You know, a handful of idiots dumb enough to use windows media player in the FIRST place get cracked by MPAA and others, and their computers held for ransom and/or identified for *STING* operations and intimidating lawsuits...

[yeah, I saw THAT possibility - a few well publicized examples, and a lot of common people shake in fear over accidentally downloading a pirate copy]

Linus Torvalds won't apply 'sh*t-for-brains stupid patch'

Re: The mostly non-existent drivers of Linux

"Linux will only play nicely with about 1/10 of existing devices."

uh, no. I rarely have problems, and most of them were with things like winmodems pretending to be sound cards on very very very old hardware [a toshiba laptop, specifically].

these days, I find there are very few devices that don't support Linux. FreeBSD, on the other hand, I have a bit more trouble with. [but it's been good to me thus far]. NDISWrapper helps, though.

(never DID get the atheros wifi to work for FBSD in my old laptop, and now the motherboard needs replacing - yeah, and all but THAT chipset probably works fine - it's the device itself, a pre-N card from 2008-ish)

Still I've found that nearly everything ELSE works 'first time around' when I plug it into a Linux system. All of those cheap ethernets, and particularly wifi and bluetooth devices that use certain very COMMON chipsets, "just work". they even work on RPi.

Maybe the hardware makers need to cough up a proper driver for their stuff, instead, something you can build locally and then 'modprobe' into the kernel startup.

(yeah that's what should be done with those wifi drivers that Linus ranted over...)

Re: There's a lot of it about

"The people who write code are good at communicating with computers, not so good at communicating with people"

I think you're wrong. Why? because it's the RECIPIENT of the communication that's the determining factor, more often than not, as to whether the communication is effective. You can tell SOME people that "1 plus 1 is 2" and those people will simply get OFFENDED even though they AGREE with you. It doesn't matter HOW you say it, so much, as the fact you SAID it, you were CONFIDENT when you said it, you didn't "feel as if" 1 and 1 are two, nor did you ask THAT person if he "felt" as if it were two, but you simply MAKE A STATEMENT OF FACT, without sugar coating it, and the recipient [with chip not-so-firmly resting on shoulder] whines and cries and complains and calls you a bigot (that's how political correctness works, anyway).

I love it when someone is telling me some B.S. and says "are you even LISTENING to me?" and I reach deep down to a skill I learned in the military, and I summarize EVERYTHING said over the last nn minutes, and then say "and I *DISAGREE* with you for the following 'n' reasons" and then enumerate them.

I _THINK_ that people should _STOP_ being all "feely", and Linus is a good example to us all of how it SHOULD be done. There. I said it.

Re: He's right. Again.

"The notion that VMWare has to rebuild its drivers from source whenever I update the kernel is an abomination."

FYI - some internal structures may change size as the result of changes made in 'make menuconfig'.

As a result, the driver must be compiled using the configuration and header files for THAT kernel. That is because the structures and ABI won't match, even from simply making a change via 'make menuconfig'. Some of the network stuff was definitely like that about 10 years ago, when I was doing a lot of embedded Linux for wifi access points, and wrestling with getting the kernel config 'just right' and making sure the driver would still compile/run ok.

Re: He's right. Again.

"it would in in everybody's best interest if they released the source code to the firmware"

you'll have to change the way the FCC certifies WiFi to make THAT happen. BCM does a lot in FIRMWARE rather than on silicon, and so you end up with things as they are. Regulations prevent them from open-sourcing it, because that would let people modify the driver to violate FCC's requirements.

But yeah, provide the BLOB along with the driver "wrapper" to the kernel dev team, or make them sign NDAs to compile the BLOB and ship the compiled binary with the kernel. [incidentally I've worked with Broadcom's WiFi driver code in the past, so I understand what/why on this, though it's been a few years]

Re: He's right. Again.

"But by making a version of a device's firmware get compiled in with the device driver in the kernel you're linking firmware version to the kernel version. Not too clever."

why not? get the latest kernel to get the latest driver. either that, or insmod the driver after the pre-compiled part of the kernel boots up, during the 'init' process. [I think you can do this with systemd, and you could definitely do it with system V]

ok a little LESS convenient, I get it. but it's better than the alternative.

Tesla driver dies after Model S hits tree

Re: standard operating procedures

"they are firefighters, how would they tackle an electrical fire in any other situation"

well it's not entirely an electrical fire.

Fire classes are 'A' (wood, paper) 'B' (oil, natural gas), 'C' (electrical), and 'D' (chemical, pyrotechnics)

http://www.falckproductions.com/resources/fire-safety-and-firewatch/classes-of-fire-a-b-c-d-and-k/

apparently also a class 'K' now, for cooking fires [usually these have PKP dump extinguishers activated by heat or a pull-chain/lever of some kind]

What we have here is a case where there is a class 'C' fire _AND_ a class 'D' fire. Putting dry chemical on lithium will probably make it WORSE. Also dry chemical is conductive, and so it would make the electrical fire worse. CO2 usually works best on electrical, and probably the Lithium fire as well. Problem with class 'D' is knowing _exactly_ what chemicals will put it out, and what chemicals make it worse. You could actually put some fires out with OIL, if you think about it, because it has excellent smothering and cooling effects, so long as it's not atomized with plenty of O2 [in which case you'd get an EXPLOSION and a class B fire to go with it].

Class D fires may be self-oxygenating. in the case of a LiPo, this is probably the case when you get past a certain point. Li reacts with just about everything, from the negative electrode to the material it's sealed up with, the atmosphere, WATER, and anything else you throw at it.

When I was in the Navy I was trained in firefighting [as everyone else was] and we did regular training and drills and whatnot. I've actually put out a couple of fires (not while in the Navy) when there was an arsonist in my neighborhood, a few decade ago. I wouldn't call myself an expert, just 'knowledgeable'.

But I can totally understand why firefighters were hesitant to try and put out a battery fire like that. Sometimes, if life is not immediately threatened, if property damage can be avoided by "letting it burn" and keeping it from spreading, THAT is what you'd do, to avoid "something worse" if you do the wrong thing...

Re: own EV happens to have the exact same problem

"But your point about a lithium battery is a lithium battery is well taken."

right, lithium being the second most chemically reactive substance in the known universe, and the most reactive of all of the metals. This makes it a very good battery material, not so good on safety following a catastrophic failure to contain the material in an airless environment, nor prevent an unintentional extermely-low-resistance circuit from forming between the + and - terminals following such an event.

We've already seen battery troubles on the (I think it was) 777 airliners causing a fire. We all know that on occasion a malfunctioning LiPo or LiIon battery can burst into flames, destroying whatever equipment it's mounted in. We also have airline regulations preventing the shipment of batteries 'over a certain amp-hourage' in airline carryon. Such regulations require that these batteries be shipped in approved containers, fireproofed, etc..

So I guess it's kinda like a Corvaire or a Pinto in that respect...

What's next, "unsafe at any speed" for the TESLA? Or do we build fireproofing material and special 'crumple' things for the batteries?

Ralph Nader types, where are you? Chances are they're conflicted between contradictory positions on environmentalism and consumer safety...

Pokémon-loving VXer targets Linux with 'Umbreon' rootkit

"You would be surprised at the number of people using RPi's who expose them to the net and leave the default username and password...."

not really. Your typical 'maker' types are more interested in building cool electronics and making their pi do a dance or flash LEDs and basically know _nothing_ about IT/ security.

At least they're not using Win-10-nic and/or ".Not" on some overpriced intel solution...

(then again, a rumor has it that Win-10-nic has a version for RPi. now I need 'pink liquid' for the nausea that this mental image just caused)

rumor... read: "yes I saw an El Reg article about it, but I'm trying to forget it exists"

Re: "Umbreon is manually installed onto an affected device or server by the attacker."

here's a scenario that's likely:

a) an RPi user doesn't change the default pi:pi user:pass after installing Raspbian. keep in mind, ssh is enabled AND sudo works on ALL commands

b) the RPi is configured for IPv6, meaning it's IPv6 address is NOW! PUBLICALLY! VISIBLE! TO! ANYONE! WHO! CAN! GET! IT!! (that includes ssh, pretty sure, but I'd have to double-check sshd_config to make sure it's listening)

c) because the PW wasn't changed, a click-bait web site COULD detect an RPi accessing it, and back-crack the system nearly instantaneously, and install this thing.

SOLUTION:

a) immediately change pi:pi to something else (or disable the 'pi' login entirely)

b) disable ssh access via IPv6 unless you REALLY REALLY need it

c) configure your firewall and sshd and sudo settings properly

d) require su to root [with a cryptic password] for MOST things, i.e. stop using the 'sudoers' group and being lazy about it.

RPi works well as a headless system so you probably don't want to disable ssh, but you want to make sure it' SECURE shell, not "pseudo-secure shell with a brain-damaged insecure config'

Adobe reverses decision to kill NPAPI Flash plugin for Linux

Re: Anyone else get this mental image?

Flash - it's an UNDEAD horse. It's been beaten to death SO many times, it's become UNDEAD.

https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Undead_Horse_Trope

skull and crossbones, because, Pirates of the Caribbean [the first movie]

Re: Flash is dead, give it a proper burial

"I've been flash-free for a while now, don't miss it one bit,"

I've had too many problems in the past with the linux flash plugins in FreeBSD, and so I've been relatively flash-free since gnash lost support (and wouldn't work on half the sites anyway). I don't miss it. Also didn't miss it when NoScript blocked all of the flash ads, and NOW "lack of plugin" blocks them as well. Web sites load FASTER without flash on your system.

Now if there were a way to get rid of JQuery and OTHER monolithic scripting cruft...

Hacker takes down CEO wire transfer scammers, sends their Win 10 creds to the cops

A positive story about hackers

It's nice to see a positive story about hackers. MOST hackers aren't law breakers [they typically do engineering work, solving complex problems with rapidly adapting and often non-traditional techniques] and so are of the 'white-hat' variety. Some are black-hats, and these guys were arrested in THIS story. But you have to appreciate the 'grey-hat' hackers as well, like the "protagonist" of this story, sending the carefully crafted documents to the bad guys to reveal their identity.

Microsoft thought of the children and decided to ban some browsers

Re: Nanny Microsoft strikes again

"The reason for the silence is he asked Microsoft shills to answer and there aren't any here."

then where did all those downvotes come from?

nanny microsoft. watch MSNBC (triangle-head and doughboy) for more than 5 minutes, and that's a good representation of how their internal company politics work, too.

well, MSNBC is rated *LAST* in the cable news networks last I checked, lower than CNN even. And Micro-shaft is soon to have their OPERATING SYSTEM ratings do the same thing, once the end-users wake up and smell the LINUX.

Re: Lawsuit Time Again

"Even OS X parental controls work with Chrome and Firefox (it sets up a local HTTP proxy for all browsers)."

yes, but OSX is BSD under the hood, so it's much easier to make this happen. We're talking an abortive cluster-blank excuse for an operating system, known as 'Win-10-nic'. THAT, and MS needing an EXCUSE to LEVERAGE their CRAPWARE onto the next generation of youths.

'Hey, Elon? You broke it, you bought it' says owner of SpaceX's satellite cinder

Re: Insurance? Because someone can't even pump liquid oxygen? For a TEST?

"What is there to explode—I mean... to 'fast fire'?"

the propellant stored within the payload, maybe?

also worth pointing out, a launch pad test burn like this simulates what will happen during the actual launch. It hadn't even lit off the engines yet. If high levels of O2 around the payload were the cause [this is a normal pre-flight condition], then the test fire isn't the reason for the rocket-shattering kaboom. What if the payload were leaking hydrazine [or some other such volatile fuel]? THAT might have been it... hydrazine vapors contacting the O2 in sufficient concentration, spontaneously combusting. oops.

yeah no open flames while fueling

Re: Going nowhere

"Or the insurance only covered the launch, not the pre-launch tests."

that's the kind of fine print and careful l[aw]yering I'd expect from an insurance company...

meanwhile, has anyone figured out what caused the problems? Did it START within the payload part of the rocket? Was it POSSIBLY caused by the PAYLOAD, and NOT the launch vehicle?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Life insurance doesn't pay out for suicides. What about rocket insurance when the payload itself blows the whole thing up on the launch pad? Maybe SpaceX will be asking for a few $million to cover launch pad repairs and cost of the rocket+fuel due to a FAULTY PAYLOAD???

It's OK to fine someone for repeating a historical fact, says Russian Supreme Court

"the whole purpose of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution is to make the governments job harder."

The entire U.S. Constitution was supposed to do that, limit power etc. not GRANT it. That concept of limiting powers started with the Magna Carta, of course. Or maybe something even earlier?

I wonder if the Russian Supreme Court is ALSO being used for judicial activism? Probably. It's a standard trick of 'the left' because they can't get what they want through normal legislative means.

So maybe in THIS case, Pootie's regime is trying to do the same thing [judicial activism] but in a slightly different way?

it's not like the Russians can't read El Reg (or look up information on the intarwebs) to get the REAL truth, right?

Re: Or the Russians haven't updated their website yet

"He missed the bit about the USSR shipping vast quantities of raw materials to Germany in order that they could build the bombs that fell on London."

the fines for THAT would've cost him an extra few million rubels.

at least they didn't send him to a gulag...

Actually, the early collab between the Nazis and USSR could be a great lesson in history to the Russian people, about trusting foreign dictators to keep their word, dangling a carrot (Poland), manipulation, deceit, then turning against them when they least expected it, and hitting them when their army was 'improperly positioned' for defense against the Axis. Because they were LED to that position, by the Nazis, with their false promises, and we know what happened after that.

It could work, yeah. Lying about it loses this potential lesson from history. So what if it makes Stalin look like a sucker on a stick. It makes the Nazis look even WORSE.

Bloke accused of Linux kernel.org hack nabbed during traffic stop

Re: Proportionality

"But if a black man does it it's a different story."

"In what sense?"

it's a common urban legend that police and the justice system 'in general' acts like the KKK and disproportionally arrests and incarcerates blacks compared to other races (in particular, caucasians). It's generally promoted by Saul Alinsky types to stir up 'the masses' and cause riots and demonstrations over something that's not happening, particularly through ridiculous *RACIST* groups like 'Black Lives Matter'. Even the name of that group is an 'emotion bomb'. None of their claims have ANY basis whatsoever. It's just trying to get people to *FEEL* instead of THINK, so they'll pull the 'D' (aka 'Demo-Rat') lever at the ballot box, and to create CHAOS and CONFUSION and STRIFE, so that 'the left' can take more power.

It's completely unjustified "feeling-based" uninformed "made it all up" racist nonsense from the left.

Re: Proportionality

"40 years in the slammer for hacking, while rape of an unconscious woman gets you three months in county jail. America, what a country!"

that's because Mrs. Clinton won't be his l[aw]yer (nor will OJ's l[aw]yer, probably). Mrs. Clinton managed to get a child rapist off (early in her career) with a simple 'inappropriate touching' kind of charge, then BRAGGED about it in an interview, laughing, etc.. Sad part: she used the "she was asking for it" defense against a 12 year old KID, putting the VICTIM on trial, etc.. Yeah, not much for 'proportionality'.

An article about that

(and of course we can look at the OJ trial for another good example)

'L[aw]yer' Up!

Lindsay Lohan's Grand Theft Auto V cartoon case kicked out of court

Re: The never ending hypocracy of the progressive liberal never ceases to amaze.

"Isn't it humorous the amount of hatred for this Woman simply because she had the tenacity to file a court case."

I don't think that's it, though I agree with the premise in the topic.

It's more like "the sue-ers" (pronounced 'sewers') in our society that *FEEL* (the 'F' word that causes SO many problems) they have a right to tie up the civil court systems with their frivolous claims and trivial 'personal drama' issues. "Your dog barks too loud. I'M GONNA SUE!" "I spilled hot coffee in my lap because I was a klutz but it's YOUR fault for making it too hot."

And of course THIS one, "your animated game character looks and acts like me, and you did this without my permission aka 'paying me a confiscatory sum of money'."

'better things to do' comes to mind...

Re: Looks like Lohan?

that picture looks like one of those ladies that hangs out on skid row... sure it's Lohan? [enough makeup to cover the meth-wrinkles, heh]

Windows 10 now rules the weekend, taking over from Windows 7

Re: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

"But I don't believe real (intelligent) people really like Windows 10. It's only the ones that think they got something for nothing using it anyway."

I was thinking something like that as well, that a preponderance of millenials actually *LIKE* Win-10-nic [seeing nothing wrong with the adware/spyware/flatso/metro/start-thing], perceive it as "another freebie", and are just busy searching for more gummint handouts on the weekends [and thus the traffic shows it].

after all, the millenials have been CONDITIONED ALL OF THEIR LIVES to expect a free lunch, instead of doing what prior generations have done, i.e. GET A JOB so you can BUY IT.

What I like is the latest STATCOUNTER, which shows a DIP in Win-10-nic, and a BUMP in Win 7, even across a weekend!

http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-weekly-201531-201635

numbers don't lie, yeah.

Latest Intel, AMD chips will only run Windows 10 ... and Linux, BSD, OS X

Re: Fewer bugs, fewer problems

"less code, fewer bugs, fewer problems for everyone" {W.T.F?}

yeah, having less code in their code base means they can LAY OFF MORE STAFF, like the way they canned all of their Q.A. people prior to Win-10-nic's release, so that they could use the general public as their "beta test" for all of the forced windows updates, and "save money".

it's all about M-shaft wanting to keep their cash on hand [in non-US banks] so their stock value doesn't crater.

(they've stopped with shooting their own feet. they're up past the kneecaps already, heading for the groin)

Re: Microsoft continues to destroy the PC

(mostly) everything posted under this title is right in line with what I've been saying for a LONG time, that

a) 'new,shiny' isn't fast/better enough to justify getting a new computer

b) Windows 8 and later suck too much, driving people to "keep what they have"

and also

c) factor in the suck economy and people watching how they spend

funny how the article pointed THIS out:

"Windows 10 must succeed at all costs. It's Windows 10 or bust."

And Micro-shaft FORGOT that NEW PC SALES are a BIG factor for THEIR REVENUE!

/me predicts "Bust"

Blackhat wannabes proffer probably bogus Linux scamsomware

Re: Two words

sshd_config - don't forget also:

PermitRootLogin no

(probably the more important one)

then you can allow only SPECIFIC users via 'AllowUsers' 'AllowGroups' etc.

further reduces the possibility of guessing BOTH the user name AND password, unless you disable passwords entirely.

I don't favor entirely disabling passwords. that way you can remote in from ANY machine with an ssh client on it, regardless of whether or not you put the appropriate key into the appropriate place, or are on a dynamically assigned IP address, or something similar. then you pick both a cryptic user name AND a hard-to-guess passphrase (not 'correct horse battery staple' but one like it)

anyway, better than "root:god"

edit: just saw after posting, someone else posted right before me about 'PermitRootLogin'. great minds think alike. 'race condition', he won.

Watch SpaceX's rocket dramatically detonate, destroying a $200m Facebook satellite

Re: cant see much

if the payload rocket started the fire that led to the explosion, who's responsibility would THAT be?

I blame Facebitchbook.

Crashing PC sales don't stop HP Inc releasing two new ones

Re: As long as

They come with Windows 10 I won't be buying them.

while test -z "" ; do echo "THUMBS UP!" ; done

I can't thumb this one up ENOUGH. I wholeheartedly, 110%, agree with you!

HP should ship them with 'linux flavor of your choice' as an option, with a discount even, and watch sales SKYROCKET!

Want a Windows 10 update? Don't go to Microsoft ... please

Re: There IS an upside to this!

Once this goes live, college IT will no longer be able to justify blocking p2p traffic because "Illegal Torrentz"

you may be right, if Micro-shaft SUCCESSFULLY SUES THEM ALL using 'net neutrality' as their SUE-HAMMER.

Re: How is this a new feature

"This was in the first version of windows 10, and I make sure it's turned off as it kills my network connection at home and work."

So, with the same KINDS of thinking that justified *OBAKACARE* in the USA [i.e. making "healthy people" pay for the "infirm" through strong-arming the young and healthy into BUYING INCREASINGLY EXPENSIVE INSURANCE that they may not actually *WANT*, in order that those with pre-existing conditions (a definite MONEY LOSS for insurers) can be "covered"],

(pause for breath)

*NOW* Micro-Shaft wants to FORCE YOU into PROVIDING THEM BANDWIDTH for the frequent (massive) *FORCED* updates that Win-10-nic is so INFAMOUSLY known for! They are STEALING BANDWIDTH from YOU and from your ISP.

But, THIS way they can SHOVE EVEN MORE "new, shiny" FEATURES UP YOUR A$$ ONTO YOUR COMPUTER, without your consent, without you WANTING them, and so on WITHOUT having to upgrade their OWN infrastructure to deal with the BANDWIDTH.

Yeah, JUST LIKE Micro-Shaft to THINK LIKE A SOCIALIST in its company policies. Or would that be *FEEL* [the 'F' word] ???

oh yeah, I turned that "feature" (the 'get updates from the intarwebs' and 'let people on the intarwebs update from your computer' settings) *OFF* as well.

"The second thing was to set all network connnections to 'metered'."

seeing as there's no official way to do that with an ETHERNET connection (or a connection within a VM), it's still "a hack" to make it work, and not a simple one from what I've read...

and eventually M-shaft could BREAK THAT ONE as well. It would be JUST LIKE THEM to do that.

Re: What about the ISP's who throttle BitTorrents?

well, I bet Micro-shaft will scream "NET NEUTRALITY" the first time some net admin wants to put a stop to excessive traffic by throttling the M-shaft P2P. case in point, a college campus.

Let's say the college campus has a fat pipe, but it's all being USED UP because of M-shaft P2P traffic. It's no so much the several hundred students who were given new laptops (with Win-10-nic on them) after graduating high school, who are just trying to do their homework, but the ZILLIONS of people around the world whose computers "discover" that the several hundred students on this campus have ALREADY completed THEIR downloads, and NOW it's "serving up content" around the world!

Uplink bandwidth usage can easily impact downloads, because ACK packets won't necessarily get through, and HTTP requests or photo uploads will become SLUGGISH. So a smart admin would THROTTLE the amount of P2P traffic that goes out through the big pipe onto the intarwebs...

And THEN, along comes Micro-Shaft, wielding their "bandwidth theft" NET NEUTRALITY hammer, whining to the various gummint regulators, yotta yotta yotta.

A likely scenario, yes.

(regardless of how you look at it, Micro-shaft is STEALING BANDWIDTH to do this)

Microsoft's beta language service gets C# dev kit

They're trying desperately to justify using C-pound, again

why oh why MUST they only provide an API in C-pound???

it's like, couldn't they do something simple, like a C language API? [it's how they USED to do things, back when Win32 API was the way to go]

unfortunately, this is a trend that many of us have seen coming: the beginning of the end of the Win32 API, where ONLY "the METRO" or Universal [CR]apps can be written for Win-10-nic, almost like for WinRT boxen. They want this. they don't want Win32 API. It hurts them to see us STILL using it for SERIOUS applications. They want everyone using C-pound so they can CONTROL us and hook us into "their way" of doing things, like an evil company selling addictive substances.

yeah, well, tinfoil hat nonetheless, and black helicopters, too.

[don't say I didn't warn you]

L0phtCrack's back! Crack hack app whacks Windows 10 trash hashes

Re: Microsoft says...

would the obligatory reference to 'correct horse battery staple' be of any help?

Windows 10 Anniversary on a Raspberry Pi: Another look at IoT Core

Re: So you want .NET on a Pi?

"Whenever you give Mono a second chance, Harambe dies again."

mono. ugh. I (and apparently many others) screamed BLOODY MURDER when 'tomboy' [added to gnome desktop] hauled all of that cruft (100Mb or so) into Debian's release, and jumped for joy when the requirement was SUBSEQUENTLY REMOVED from the gnome desktop install...

and then a supervisor at the time decided we would use a MONO application on Linux, written by HIM in 'C-pound', and the first time we tried it, it wouldn't work because mono didn't support all of the "new, shiny" in that particular devstudio version (it was around 2007 or 2008 as I recall). I snickered a bit, played along. The application NEVER went ANYWHERE, either.

I can only imagine how *PIGGY* your average C-pound application using ".Not" would be on an RPi. You know, like seconds' worth of response time to mouse clicks...

Re: RE esp8266 seem a more suitable

and USB devices like that (the el-cheapo WiFi and bluetooth USB doohickies) typically work 'out of the box' with Linux, no messing with drivers or install CD's [especially since RPi has no CD drive!!!]

Re: Well Intel would have a chance

"The problem is that Intel doesn't understand what would be needed. They bring out x86 SoCs with 16 kilobytes of RAM."

I may have a *bit* more insight, as I've actually communicated "certain requirements" to some of the people at Intel, with respect to "what it would take to use XX processor on YY". I describe (basically) what the existing processor choice does and there are features on that CPU that are integrated with other hardware, and hard to duplicate without actually "being that". For example, a differential A:D device capable of having a gain adjustment and internally selectable reference voltage. If you want to scale it to read millivolts DIFFERENTIAL for example, you could with the existing CPU, and with 11 bits of precision. THESE are the kinds of things that IOT devices need.

what's interesting is that ATMel's 'xmega' and ARM 'SAM' series CPUs can do these things. they have the hardware support with "that kind of thing" in it. they are also VERY low power devices, with super-special power saving modes and wakeup timers built-in. If Intel wants IOT market share, it's going to have to address THAT.

Re: We should use neither

"There are many Linux distros that can (or could) boot up from a single 1.44MB diskette and run on a 80386 with 16MB of RAM"

a typical WiFi Access Point might have a Linux plus bootloader image of around 4M (in NVRAM), and run on 512M or perhaps even less. Sure, they have 'busybox' instead of a full-blown userland, but it's still Linux, and there are zillions of them out there...

Re: So, can it run VS.Net?

"BTW, I thought the ".Net" terminology was dropped/killed?"

I'd like to see the entire TECHNOLOGY (of ".Not") dropped off of a tall building, THEN killed. Then torched with a flamethrower. Then sealed in a block of concrete. Then dropped into the Marianas trench. in that order.

I suppose you COULD run MShaft's latest IDE on it, though I can't imagine it would be able to do much [being that it's a monolithic pig for screen space and resources. like every OTHER ".Not" thing, it would seem]. I would have to wonder whether or not it's USABLE, though. I have trouble with "ATMel Studio" (which is based on DevStudio) having any kind of usable performance on an old laptop, and it's running at 1.6Ghz and has more RAM on it. [running W7 though] I just needed something to run it so I could flash updated firmware onto the ISP/PDI programmer, and also view/use the sample code, and verify proper PDI/ISP communications, things like that, but for every day use? Ugh... and with THAT experience under my belt, I can't imagine how *BAD* it would be, running a "newer" (piggier) version of DevStudio on an RPi.

Re: Bah!

"All the potential vulnerabilities of embedded Linux IoT devices"

vulnerabilities? [only if poorly configured]

yes, change your user/pass from 'pi:pi' and re-config sudo, and make sure you can't be ssh'd into as root. then you're fine.

some things just require user intelligence.

Re: Indeed both pointless.

"Windows RT ran on ARM, and ran very well too. I have a Surface 2 and it's an excellent device."

Fortunately, El Reg published an article a while back, about the hack that you can use to get Linux on it... assuming Micro-shaft hasn't already (deliberately) broken the REST of those 'jailbreak' methods.

Otherwise, nice paperweight.

Re: We should use neither

"Frankly, the Pi when you start pushing it beyond prototyping proves to be too unreliable, especially if used for more than one application."

I find the RPi to be EXTREMELY useful (and highly reliable) for device control types of applications. Where do you get off saying it's unreliable? Maybe you're just not using it for the right purpose.

RPi is NOT a desktop computer. OK the newer ones run about as fast as a laptop purchased before 2005, but they were pretty useful BACK THEN, weren't they? I don't expect an RPi to be doing disk-intensive applications (SD card - duh) or use it to power USB devices that draw a lot of amperage. Personally, I think you're trying to extract 3Ghz x64 desktop capabilities out of a ~1Ghz ARM processor and it disappoints. Well, 'duh' again.

what RPi _IS_ though, would be a USB-capable computer that can run an OS like Linux, talk to your networks, do WiFi, do bluetooth, and [the REAL important part] has a boatload of GPIO PINS that you can do "whatever" with.

Here's a nice example of an industrial device I designed for a customer, using an RPi:

Bed of Nails Device

THIS is what the RPi is good at doing: controlling things and sensing stuff and doing input/output with custom hardware that's tailored to the environment the device is intended to work under.

and, if it goes bad, you can replace it (for cheap), and if the SD card goes bad, you can just re-image it from a backup. Personally, I think THAT makes it VERY reliable!

(FYI it's running Raspbian)

Re: Windows or Linux?

And don't forget FreeBSD. I'm doing some (volunteer) work on FBSD 11 RC1 for the RPi at the moment, trying to address an issue I discovered with the GPIO pins (not as an official commit guy, but as someone who reported a bug, got into a discussion over it, and am now attempting to implement a kernel driver that someone recommended as a solution).

The fact is, there are SEVERAL operating system choices for the RPi. And Windows 10 "light" won't do ANYTHING for you other than "do windows things".

Last I checked, "the Store" was FULL OF [CR]APPS. Nothing worth using.

Now, ANDROID on an RPi might actually make SENSE. But _NOT_ Win-10-nic.

And the author's general opinion of 'not being ready for prime time' (essentially) is just ONE of those things that SHOULD make your anus pucker up if some clueless manager at your company says "Hey, there's a version of WINDOWS that runs on a Raspberry Pi!" and wants YOU to implement it...

Microsoft Outlook.com redecoration delay rumors: THE TRUTH

Re: Why have they broken Hotmail?

"Things have to match..."

_AND_ be dumbed-down to the lowest common denominator, like Win-10-nic.

Microsoft redfaced after Bing translation cockup enrages Saudis

living/dying by political correctness

it's funny to see a company like Microsoft shooting their own foot, because they're always being SO 'politically correct', practically demanding it in their forums [banning those who don't follow the Win-10-nic mantra, for example] and let us NOT forget their OWN NEWS NETWORK, [P]MSNBC, the home of 'Triangle-Head' (aka Rachel Maddow) and 'Dough Boy' (Chris Matthews). Or some of the wording in MShaft's latest EULA's for the 'microsoft logon' or any of their online services...

As for me, I would've immediately changed the translation of 'Saudi Arabia' to "Bite Me", trolled all of social media to make sure everyone saw it, then "apologize" and change it back.

Replacing humans with robots in your factories? Hold on just a sec

replaced by a computer (now you program them)

"There is a risk, for example, that increased automation will lead to mass unemployment and raise a multitude of social and economic issues that policy makers will have to grapple with"

well, in the 1950's, people who added numbers all day for a bank DEFINITELY had THEIR jobs replaced, and they went out and found other things to do, like maybe PROGRAM the computers?

I'd rather have computers and robots take away all of the menial boring tasks so people can focus on creative tasks LIKE computer programming, or bot maintenance, or "some other task" that is a direct result of a 'robot revolution', and much more interesting than putting tab A into slot B all day...

Robot babies fail in role as teenage sex deterrents

Re: I am reminded of

"I humbly suggest that they try a robot baby experiment on the boys instead"

or, more realistically, they PAY FOR the robot babies in monthly installments... according to how much they earn or how much allowance they get.

[well, strapping robo-baby to a guy in a front pack that he has to carry everywhere, and find a BABY SITTER FOR when he's engaging in sports or other activities, might help do the trick...]