* Posts by bombastic bob

10515 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Amazon internal chat app that censored talk of unions and ethics may 'never launch at all'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Slack can already do this...

censorship at all. that's just stupid.

WORSE if you try to violate the law with it (i.e. blocking attempts to unionize). That is VERY illegal inside the USA. Proving the violation of the law, on the other hand, may be difficult...

It's quite literally a VERY old law that an employer can not punish employees nor in any way block the establishment of a labor union within the company. The ONLY thing they can do is offer incentives like higher wages lor better conditions to COMPETE with the unions. Censorship would most likely qualify as a violation of the law in this context. But then again, social media IN GENERAL needs to be SERIOUSLY PUNISHED for its censorship efforts (in general).

I look forward to seeing some SERIOUS consequences for Amazon over this. Unfortunately it will probably mean price increases for consumers.

Bank had no firewall license, intrusion or phishing protection – guess the rest

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: What I don't understand...

who exactly made all those ATM withdrawals?

People wearing masks, no doubt. ATMs have cameras but it does little good if you have a mask on.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: What I don't understand...

Assuming that you set up shell companies someplace that's difficult to track you down in, you can assume you will be traced but not care a lot. Caiman Islands is one of those places you can set up this kind of money laundering scheme. It's a typical money laundering technique used by "the big time": crooks. YES, you CAN trace it with difficulty, and if the criminals know what they are doing, they will probably get away with it.

I mean how do drug cartels and organized crime bosses "get away with it" ? Pretty much "that".

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Root Causes

may just have been cluelessness coupled with being cheap

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: What I don't understand...

Maybe they were too cheap to fly to the Caiman Islands (or wherever) to set up an account for a shell company there??

I would expect wire transfers, cashier's checks, some basic money laundering, and other organized crime techniques may also have been beyond their skill set. It only takes a semi knowledgeable script kiddie to use phishing attacks to set up a RAT trojan...

which ALSO means (the obvious) that proper bank security SHOULD have prevented this.

(I hope that no depositors lost their funds, but I expect they did)

China rolls out bots to enforce ‘temporary closed-off management’ of Shanghai

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

CCP tyranny - now with ROBOTS!

This is why we do not want to be like THEM.

("Droid Army" - 'Roger Roger')

Remember when Huawei's CFO was detained in Canada? She's been promoted to chair the board

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: US soil

OK maybe we can come up with an alternative:

U.S. earth? dirt? ground? non-oceany-stuff?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: "The US is so convinced Huawei's products represent a security threat"

you sure they wouldn't have a button to MAKE it stop beating?

"About your social credit score..."

bombastic bob Silver badge
FAIL

"Make decisions collectively" - how CCP of them!

Why am I NOT surprised that a CCP dominated company would have some form of communism embedded in their management policies...

(as I see it, a recipe for failure)

GitLab issues critical update after hard-coding passwords into accounts

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: Hard coded passwords

run by gits. heh.

Amazon warehouse workers in New York unionize in historic win against web giant

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Do not forget, Ronald Reagan WAS a Union guy!

As I recall the air traffic controller's union had it in their contract NOT to strike.

And there was apparently (along with an existing law) a federal judge who ordered them back to work (essential services for national security or similar) and they violated that order. THAT is why they were fired. See link. The article says it better.

You really should get ALL of the facts on this. Seriously. You're welcome. Omitting key details is sometimes called "lying by omission". But I give YOU the benefit of the doubt in not having a good information source (i.e. YOU were lied to about it somewhere up the line).

As for "FBI Snitch" what proof do you have? (I think that's just typical anti-Reagan propaganda)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Amazons options?

4. Amazon buys more warehouse robots

5. "Grunt" level employees are laid off, being replaced by robots

6. A portion of the laid off employees are re-hired as 'managers', no longer blue collar, no longer in the union

That possibility exists as well. The union should be wary of it. If they price themselves out of work this WILL happen.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Trickle-down economics

Yes - many examples exist where management and union work together for a win-win situation.

If i were to start up a warehouse or factory, part of the "cost analysis" would involve the unions, who could provide trained employees at a known cost along with HR, hiring, firing, and training. Coupled with costs associated with locations, they could be VERY helpful in making a successful factory/warehouse/whatever where you minimize cost while also retain quality employees that get the job done.

LOTS of costs associated with these things, some less apparent than others.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Trickle-down economics

part of my dues went to a political party

One major set of reforms, which may not be universal in the USA (but is apparently common), includes the ability to NOT contribute that portion of union dues when it is used for political purposes.

In many other cases it supports "right to work" where you do not have to be a union member, and the regulations on that vary but in essence you would still pay for benefits through the union but not for anything else.

In a way that is VERY good when the unions are forced to make themselves valuable to employees in order to keep them as members.

(I am against political contributions by unions and corporations anyway - INCLUDING "contributions in kind" which takes MANY forms)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Trickle-down economics

U.S. laws require companies to respect unionization, to the best of my knowledge. There might be some regulations there, such as a vote of employees and other formalities, but essentially Amazon can not stop it and if the employee unionize, they cannot be fired over it.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: "objections based on the inappropriate and undue influence"

It's about time that Ronald Reagan's legacy on this point dies a final death.

WHAT the hell is THAT supposed to mean? Do not forget, Ronald Reagan WAS a Union guy! (He was the president of the Screen Actor's Guild to be precise)

As far as I am concerned, if Amazon's warehouse employment conditions are SO bad that a union needs to be formed to rectify that problem, then THEY totally screwed the pooch on managing their warehouses.

Ideally you make the conditions equivalent to a union shop so that people do not bother with unions. It becomes a better place to work, enough that people do not want it to change, and you get happier employees that ideally work harder. A labor union, however, will take money from employers and employees as a kind of "middle man" so ultimately they cost more.

But if an employer wants to use the union for H.R. and training, they can make unions and management a winning combination. That depends both on the union and on the management to make that work (as it does in many places, though, so it CAN work well).

But I suspect that this new union will be more like Teamsters or one of the other "not so nice" power-grab politically motivated unions.

Volvo car sales tumble amid ongoing chip shortages

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I like my chips

I once experimented on an old big-block Ford LTD (429) by modifying the carburator such that it idled on 4 cylinders, on the mains (idle jets were closed off). Since half the cylinders got NO fuel, essentially, it needed regular fuel flow (not idle jets) to idle and do city driving. Gas mileage was significantly better, though I could not measure it other than noting how less often I had to put gas in. Highway mileage went up by about 20% though. And the car stopped "coughing" and running after I shut it off.

This is not a new idea, and maybe a car computer could alternate cylinders around on a modern engine to accomplish the same thing with EFI (just rotate which half of the cylinders get fuel) once the engine warms up. Or if you wanna tinker in your garage with a 40+ year old car that stlil runs, go for it.

As for engine trouble, the ODB-II (or later I guess) stuff usually tells you exactly what went wrong. But some time ago I had to step in to get the diverter valve assembly replaced on my current vehicle. It was building up water in an electric air pump (smog device) and causing it to fail, within the warranty period. I was tired if it failing and so I thought about it, did some online study, and determined that the diverter valve was leaking back into the air pump, and as a huge amount of car exhaust is water vapor, condensing inside the air pump and making it fail.

I figure if you can troubleshoot I.T. problems, you can use the same know-how and online earch ability to at least assist the mechanics with fixing your ride. (But I like the "ask a question" method so they do not get pissed at you doing their job for them - "What would happen if THIS component were to fail? Would it XX and YY and cause THIS to happen? Can we try fixing ZZ to see if it helps? I bet there's something wrong with it.")

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

Re: Chip shortages

I like my chips deep fried and served with ketchup

(But lemon and salt is ok, too.)

Taters are still cheap. Cutting them up not that hard. Use abrasives (like a 'greenie' cleaning pad) to get the worst of the skin off, then cut taters into the appropriate shape with a big kitchen knife, boil for 6 minutes in salty water, then immediately toss into a deep fryer for 8 to 9 minutes. Mmmmm...

And don't forget the beer.

(but what DOES this have to do with I.T. ??? I guess you made me hungry!)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: a non chip filled would be bliss

Other than EFI and a few other efficiency improving innovations, you are correct.

It might also help to have multiple alternative designs [functional, not specific] for sub-assemblies (provided by third parties) available, from intermittent wipers to heater and A/C control. And like another auto maker (I think it was Ford) recently announced, maybe just buy (at a discount) a car WITHOUT the electronic bells and whistles and thereby keep the revenue stream going...

Or is this REALLY all about making EVERYBODY own an ELECTRIC car??? (and HOW much of electric vehicles are made in China?)

Also worth pointing out: If your second source is down the road from your first source, it's STILL "all eggs in one basket". Right?

Any fool can write a language: It takes compilers to save the world

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: KISS 2: Generic Code

M4 - I just deal with it for autoconf (etc.) and that's about it

Let's not complicate things TOO much ok?

Microsoft backtracks on lack of easy Windows browser choice

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Only because..

Yes. Short summary: "They Got Caught". Again. Unnecessarily long "pointing out the obvious" commentary follows. With snark added for pleasure.

[possible conversation, somewhere in Redmond]

"Hey let's make it more difficult to switch away from Edge. Then we can capture the entire browser functionality and put in more ads, more spying, and 'enhancements' that only our browser can do, to lock every into our browser as WELL as our operating system!"

But when the newest generation of 'children trying to be software engineers' arrogantly said "It is OUR turn now" they lacked the experience that was learned in the mid 90's, in particular that anti-trust lawsuit that FORCED them to stop integrating Internet Explorer in a manner that makes it harder to use something ELSE. This started with Windows 3.0 (use of undocumented functions by Micros~1 aka 'insider knowledge' to keep their OWN applications from crashing and burning) to "Active Desktop" and everything that went with it. And do not forget the 'Media Player' issues (that may only be an EU thing though).

But yeah, from the 2D FLATTY to the ad slinging, I have been convinced that Micros~1 is not being run by the engineers that made Windows 3.x, but instead by a bunch of CHILDREN that want to make everything "their way" (customers be DAMNED!).

Web3 'contains the seeds of a dystopian nightmare' says analyst firm

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Sorry.....I've known about the 'dystopian nightmare' for many years.................

I suspect the "new, shiny" anyway. Not only has it been a SERIOUS DISAPPOINTMENT since around 2010 (windows 8, gnome 3, Australis, 2D FLATASS in general, spyware and adware in WIndows 10, yotta yotta yotta yotta the list goes on), it shows a HORRIBLE trend that "modern" means less choice, less freedom, less privacy, less functionality, being driven by corporations rather than individuals driving THEM (because WE are CUSTOMERS), and so forth.

So the moment someone siren-sings "Web 3.0" I wanna mistrust it JUST ON PRINCIPLE ALONE.

(even if the article was an April 1 joke)

Tomorrow Water thinks we should colocate datacenters and sewage plants

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Data center cooling

depending on how hot the water is, you can use it to generate chilled water using an absorption chiller.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Water companies in England

maybe when the solids have been removed from the sewage, you can burn them to make electricity?

Recycling to the max!

(some decades ago i knew people who worked at an experimental power plant, one I actually visited, that ran on cow manure. Yeah, no sh... OK bad PUNishment but still...)

Boston Dynamics' latest robot is a warehouse workhorse

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Love the bullshit

Well, past performance would suggest that warehouse employees would stlll be there but they would be managing and repairing the bots. Just like accountants who would otherwise add up numbers all day become analysts and/or programmers.

So, if the robots take over the menial jobs, there will still be other jobs for humans to do. As companies are more efficient, they can hire people to be EVEN MORE efficient. The work gets more interesting, requires more creativity and intelligence, and so on. At least, that';s how past performance has been in industries where people are "replaced" by computers and/or robots. The people (generally) end up getting better and/or better paying jobs doing those things that still need doing (but cannot be done by a 'clank'). And don't forget jobs 'making more robots'.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Love the bullshit

When computers replaced rooms full of low level accountants slaving away 8 hours a day with adding machines at banks (with job titles like 'calculator') I'm sure there was a bit of an adjustment period... since they were all "replaced" with a "robot".

Now, does anybody want to go back to that?

Same thing with warehousing. I think people need to be more creative and fit better into jobs where they CAN be. (And those jobs tend to pay more)

UK spy boss warns China hopes Russia will help it take over tech standards

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: potential to fragment the internet and allow more central control

There's a reason why AOL disappeared

And yet, there's Fa[e]ceB[an,ook], Tw[a,i]tter, Google[-ism], Insta-[Sh,gr]am, and the rest of 'em, all trying to control their fifedoms on 'teh intarwebs'.

So I wish this were true, the reason why AOL disappeared being the need to control too much and losing to freedom. But I fear it is NOT. More likely, they just could not compete with the overall intarwebs as compared to their own offerings, at the price they charged for the services they offered. Similarly, CompuServe.

And the ones trying to be gatekeeper are still jockeying for position and the CCP wants in, too.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: shooting down their own aircraft

yes, "friendly fire" incidents are a constant risk on the battlefield. But currently there aren't many Ukrainian pilots flying MIGs, if any at all (have they received the MIGs from Poland? last I heard they have not, for reasons that anger me).

Anyway, if there are no MIGs being piloted by Ukrainians, the Russian soldiers should know better, but apparently they do not (at least as indicated by news reports, FWIW).

Couple that with low morale and apparently improper/inadequate training of a mostly conscripted fighting force [that may only be motivated by threats and intimidation] and you get the kinds of things we appear to be seeing.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: The World's Weakest Metal: Chinesium

From the article: "China's choice of standards bodies is widely interpreted as forum shopping, to find a receptive audience for a proposal that would not be accepted by current gatekeepers."

And the idea of Russia being their new customers (NOTE: Russia has about 1/10 of China's population, 146 million vs 1.42 billion) is NOT going to make a whole lot of difference in the number of people deploying their new 'standard'. So the world would end up with "an internet": and "a seperate Chinanet". Big whoop. China has their own internal market for things anyway. It's where all of the stuff made with (alleged) patent and copyright violations (allegedly) get sold.

Besides, the problem with communism and totalitarianism is that, with the exception of an elite group of favored individuals, innovation is effectively DISCOURAGED. 'Evolutionary' development would quickly stagnate, the overall quality would be poor, and nobody would DARE point out problems for fear of losing one's job or (worse) getting "disappeared" merely for 'rocking the boat'. Bad social credit if you do not refer to the inventor as the smartest person on the planet, and your bosses as both kind *AND* wise as well as fair and just.

And, after some recent news about Universities in the USA being 'soft targes' for stealing innovation, you have to wonder how much of China's tech proposal originated inside the USA or EU or UK or anywhere ELSE for that matter, and was simply stolen/co-opted/etc. by the CCP for their own purposes...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: The war in Ukraine is a devastating blow to the image of a mighty Russia

They are looking a lot more like Saddam Hussein's "Republican Guard", which prior to January of 1991, was highly respected and even feared.

But Russia still has nukes, and Pootie just might be insane enough to USE them. Dammit.

[it also does not help that the Biden "administration" is still doing things to irritate and antagonize Pootie rather than doing what would REALLY be effective, i.e. project STRENGTH and drop the restrictions on USA domestic oil production, especially in Alaska, and let the world buy OUR oil and natural gas at prices below that being sold by Russia (yes people are still buying Russia's oil and gas), so that Pootie will REALLY get an economic hurt put on him, instead of :"what they are actually doing right now"]

Russia bans foreign software purchases for critical infrastructure

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: Software with western components

Not sure how this will work for them.

They could try forking ReactOS...

(when Pootie is finally deposed or ??? maybe they could re-submit as actual contributions to the project!)

Japanese startup makes baby carrier-style sling for 'Love Robots'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Alert

I thought my brain would explode...

when i saw "love robots" and "baby carrier-style sling" in the same sentence...

(fortunately I read the article)

Next versions of both Fedora and Ubuntu head into beta

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: any version of Gnome is painful

FBSD supported the final version gnome 2 for several YEARS in its ports collection, until Mate.

In many ways it was EVEN BETTER since it became VERY stable, built properly, and had no major issues that were un-patched. I liked it.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Here we go again

he was wearing the wrong hat (see icon)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Here we go again

Well, there's THIS "distinguish" between Wayland and X11

From the article: (re: desktop extensions for VirtualBox) but it still didn't work using Wayland.

Also the BIG thing that does NOT work with Wayland: export DISPLAY=MyWorkstation:0.0

(it would be IM!POSSIBLE! for me to get work done with Wayland because Wayland will not support this)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Rocky is an interesting alternative to Fedora. I'll have to check it out when it tracks the next RHEL, now behind Fedora (and CentOS). When I tried it last time it worked out of the box but did not have a lot of choice for GUI etc. The one thing I had to hack up was a result of them picking an arbitrary RFC1918 address for their internal firewalling. It happened to be in use by me, an IP block for the LAN that I decided on ~20 years ago so it would not affect routing when VPN'ing into a customer's network.

Anyway, Rocky works ok when I last tested it. But I forget what file I had to edit to make it work. I could just do a "grep -r /etc" for the IP address string, though, and it would be quickly found.

Windows 11 growth at a standstill amid stringent hardware requirements

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

linux iTunes equivalents

does THIS help?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Subscription charging coming to you soon

it's hard and a bit tedious, but you can resist the strong-arm techniques applied to you when installing Win-10-nic, and ONLY have a local account. As for "Win II", I have no clue. (Waiting for an update to VirtualBox that emulates the TPM crap)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: No matter

I (somewhat) recently built 2 machines from parts ordered online and purchased locally. They both "came with" FreeBSD 12. Both are AMD Ryzen systems. The 2nd one actually uses an older Ryzen (3 I think) and the 1st one a Ryzen 5 (6 core). So they're pretty "modern" depending on how you interpret the word...

and they have NEVER booted windows (in a VM sure but never the main OS)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Wait for v2

Windows 11 is stable thanks to it's Windows 10 core (etc.)

you're supposed to put the lipstick on the end that goes "oink"...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Headmaster

Re: Gaslighting

Gaslighting: shining a "fake light" on something in order to make it seem like something else, as if your own past experiences are no longer valid. It differs from distraction (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain) in that you're being told or shown things that try to make you "question reality", such as the reality of burning buildings in the background when the news reporter says it is a "peaceful protest" - the reporter is 'gaslighting'. Or, saying that a feature is "not an advertisement" when it most clearly *IS* one., would also be gaslighting. Your own eyes and ears tell you the truth, but "the gaslighter" is trying to convince you otherwise, by making you question your own concept of reality.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Why move to Windows 11 ?

with the exception of ME, I pretty much liked windows 3.x (and NT) through XP. After that, not so much...

The only post XP version that is any decent is 7. The rast *ALL* *STINK* (starting with server 2k3)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: Why move to Windows 11 ?

The hardware that does not support Linux or FreeBSD does not get purchased by me. And for an employer or client to purchase it, when I am the one that needs it for doing work, same thing.

So if it is ONLY supported by 11, chances are it would have to be heavily discounted before any normal person would actually want it...

With 90% COVID-19 vax rate, Intel to step up return-to-office

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: It's about conversation

Telephones work, last I tried. Pretty useful, tnose things. Had a conference call for a court hearing recently. Being that it was 3000 miles away, and I had to participate, having that capability was extremely convenient.

Yes, businesses thrive on communication. But it does not have to be in person. And it does not have to be on a computer, either. That old-style land line comes in handy! (of course you could get a message on IRC or slack saying "hey we wanna do a conference call at 1PM today" and there ya have it.)

So yeah, communication still possible, as it always was, by phone.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: Heads in the sand

news flash: the shutdowns, the lockdowns, the masks, the distancing, and event he vaccines have not stopped THE VIRUS. It's a VIRUS. It's what they do. In fact I would argue that "all of that" has SLOWED the normal immune reactions creating herd immunity. and possibly even CREATED NEW VARIANTS outside of the normal natural progression of such things (which would have greatly suppressed those variants), ALL because of gummints and media driving fear and panic and do not doubt me, follow the money, SOMEONE is profiting off of "all that" in some way.

So if you're gonna DOOM and GLOOM over it, you get a big THUMBS DOWN from ME. Enjoy your masking and distancing. *I* refuse to participate.

What this article seems to be about is the one thing that has come out of this COMPLETE AND UTTER BOVINE SEWAGE, and that would be the VERY welcome trend of "Work from Home", and the likeliness that it's here to stay.

bombastic bob Silver badge
WTF?

Re: Delusional thinking

interactions have suffered and businesses are feeling the pain

Interactions "suffered" ? And I have not seen business 'feel any pain' EXCEPT for that created by gummints trying to "solve this" (all of which resulted in quite a BIT of pain, for EVERYONE, because THAT is what gummints DO, cause PAIN, usually in our backsides and/or our wallets).

The biggest pain has been the completely unnecessary disruption of the supply chain. And I think we can blame China (and those companies unwise enough to have placed all eggs in THAT basket) for most of it. But as for working from home? It has most likely been an overall BENEFIT.

And as I mentioned before, a hybrid work environment, where you do work from home AND show up in an office whenever it makes sense to do so, is probably the best solution ever.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: WFH is here to stay

I think you'll find that being in the office and the rate of getting sick from being around others at work is not going to be a whole lot different than in the past, and for those who live their lives in fear over it, they'll only be doing themselves a disfavor. It's time: Time to get back to the REAL normal, except with more time working from home whenever possible because we CAN. And, employers have been taught (by now) that it IS possible (and probably better in the long run).

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: WFH is here to stay

their idea of management was being able to see the back of your head.

heh. yeah we've all seen THAT kind of 'management' before.

(or you could just install a slow scan low resolution webcam behind your desk, and just 'loop it' with recorded video when you're drinking adult beverages or viewing online content)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: WFH is here to stay

They idea of the 'hybrid' work environment might simply be 9one that works well for me, where you do most of the REAL work in your home office, but show up when there's meetings or office equipment or things to bring back/forth during hours where high traffic is not a problem. So you basically go in when it makes sense (and usually it won't, heh), and/or for only part of the day, and work from home the rest of the time. WIn-win.

With the exception of on-site-only kinds of positions where "being there" is a requirement (we can all think of THOSE kinds of things, from hospitals to warehouses to retail) a hybrid work environment might be the best thing ever.

Russian devs plan alternative Android app store after Google Play bans paid apps

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: The proletariat

your use of the communist manifesto term 'proletariat' is disturbing...