Posts by bombastic bob

Truck, sweet truck: Volvo's Chinese owner unveils methanol/electric truck with bathroom and kitchen

Re: sorta like a motor home instead of a sleeper cab

not sure why methanol instead of diesel fuel though. Diesel tanks would be physically smaller, and the engine more efficient. It's the nature of the fuel. Alcohols are already "partially oxidized" causing them to have less heat content.

The focus seemed to be more on the electric side, though, swapping out the entire battery assembly and things like that. In my view, a diesel generator would be separate but connected up MOSTLY to charge batteries while you're stopped (or maybe run while you drive for hill climbing). Maybe it's the kind of thinking that comes from having been on a submarine...

An advantage to not running the diesel generator continuously is that when an engine is operating at max power it's also operating at (or close to) max efficiency. This is especially true for diesel engines due to the way they work. In general they should pollute less in this configuration, and you would not have to run the thing inside a city (let's say) and just run on batteries within urban areas when you can. Then of course when you need the extra power to climb hills you'd have both batteries AND diesel engine to do that.

But mostly, it would charge batteries when you're stopped. I guess [un]loading counts for that, too.

sorta like a motor home instead of a sleeper cab

that's my take on it - aside from the autonomous claims.

An actual truck driver might appreciate not having to get a hotel room or even go to a truck stop for cross-country hauling though. This is a thing in the USA where it might take a few days to get from one coast to the other, with Rocky Mountains in between.

(or it's a place to "wait it out" if you get stuck at the bottom of a mountain because the pass is frozen or filled with mudslides or something similar)

I would have included a diesel generator to at least partially re-charge while you sleep.

The return of the turbo button: New Intel hotness causes an old friend to reappear

Re: I would lucky b**tard to anyone who has a Scroll Lock key

why don't we turn off DRM instead, and just leave the scroll lock key as-is ???

New year, new OS: OneDrive support axed for old versions of Windows from 1 Jan 2022

Re: A remote personal file server is the way to go.

might be even cheaper to get a rent-a-server with ssh access. Then use scp or sftp to copy things onto it, and maybe the web server to download it (if you want it public anyway).

DSL costs quite a bit more than a rent-a-server last I checked. And the bandwidth would be better.

Re: Free cloud storage killed the home NAS companies

ZFS is pretty cool, yeah. I boot into ZFS on my workstations for 3-4 years now.

Periodic 'zpool scrub' spotted a hard drive going bad before any real data loss. It's a real butt-saver.

(it's used on FreeNAS as well, as I recall)

[And last I checked OneDrive does not work for FreeBSD or Linux anyway]

Re: Free cloud storage killed the home NAS companies

do you really want your mp3 collection to be stored on someone else's server, subject to THEIR whims?

just thought I'd point that out. I have to wonder how much marketing information can be gleaned from someone's preferences in music... or whether the content's owner has legit copies or not, etc.

[de-duplication algorithms might look at binary mismatches as "possible copyright infringement" - just sayin']

Re: OneDrive

(see icon)

Linux PC shop System76 is building a new desktop environment in Rust

Re: Build back better?

interoperability notwithstanding (it better be there by default), as long as it's not time wasted RE-WRITING things into the new lingo, I'm somewhat OK with it. But there was once a big hype over ADA, but of course THAT fell apart. And Python (in some ways) took over a lot of what was once being done in Perl, so that worked out ok.

As long as the programming lingo being chosen is "fit for purpose" and does not create BLOATWARE, let them do what they want.

I'd just as well write in plain old 'C'.

Re: What's the point?

maybe they should allow writing the stuff in CRAYON

Re: Let us hope ...

if it looks like TraditionalOk instead of Adwaita, I'll consider it... (I really *HATE* the 2D FLATSO and the too-skinny-to-grab-with-a-mouse Faux-scrollbars of Adwaita, which is unfortunately the DEFAULT for GTK 3, and somewhat difficult to change properly within Mate on FBSD).

Worthy of mention, THIS:

export QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SET_FACTOR 0

export QT_SCALE_FACTOR 1

export QT_FONT_DPI 120

export GDK_SCALE 1

export GDK_DPI_SCALE 1

And make sure the default GTK 3 theme has been changed from 'Adwaita' to 'TraditionalOK' using

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences theme 'TraditionalOk'

This should fix anything relying on GTK3 except FF and Tbird which NOW need some special help in about:config (and the Tbird equivalent of editing the advanced settings):

widget.content.gtk-theme-override 'TraditionalOk'

widget.non-native-theme.enabled false

(now if SLACK would just HONOR _MY_ PREFERENCES...)

(probably other stuff too, but I recently installed newer stuff and I had to do this to FIX ANYTHING GTK3 from having UGLY WORTHLESS FAUX SCROLLBARS in addition to any kind of FLATSO look)

anyway just thought I'd mention that... (it took way too long to figure out what to do about this, even with online searches and RTFM'ing)

Now that's a splash down: Astronauts spend 8-hour trip to Earth in diapers after SpaceX capsule toilet breaks

I'm sure BOEING would have gotten the toilets to work

nevermind reliably flying into space with an actual crew on board. And returning them to Earth. Alive.

OK I just had to say that. Well, THAT, and... POO! IN! SPACE!!!

[coat, please]

Oregon city courting Google data centers fights to keep their water usage secret

Re: Ammonia

some of what you say, yeah, but not entirely accurate. still in principal you're in the right ball park.

Think of it this way: air conditioners are heat pumps. you compress a fluid or concentrate a salt, and then cool it (the 'hot' side, cooling tower or radiator fins). Then you expand the fluid or dilute the salt, causing it to get colder, and then it absorbs heat from the chilled air/water system (getting warmer in the process), and the cycle repeats.

Using an air-only radiator causes a size problems in large systems due to the large amount of heat that needs to be rejected. So, unlike a refrigerator or air conditioner in your house (or car/RV), they need to cool it using water and use a cooling tower to get rid of that large amount of heat.

They're not really getting rid of the water, though. They''re rejecting the heat. The water evaporates as part of the process. This process still works even in areas that have high temp+humidity so long as the chillers are designed to still work efficiently with very hot cooling water [like maybe in Florida].

Re: 21st century

the lightest of CFCs is chloro-flouro-methane. It's about 2.5 times heavier than air. To get it to go UP you need a VOLCANO. I have worked with refrigerants and when I was in the Navy, a valve snapped of one of the air conditioning units while the boat was in port.; It took the ventilation system over 24 hours to get it out, and they had to put portable air blowers in the lower areas of the engine room to stir the air up enough, because REFRIGERANT IS SO HEAVY compared to air. And if you can't easily make it go up less than 50 feet, how the HELL does it go up 80,000 feet?

So yes, exactly what you said about refrigerant and ozone. In a lab it depletes ozone. In the atmosphere the CFC-like chemicals are put up there by VOLCANOS. If you calculate like for a hot air balloon, you would have to heat the lightest CFC to over 1200F to get it to rise up, and of course it would either break down or cool off before getting there.

But using CFCs to cool things down happens inside the building, most likely, making chilled water, and using cooling towers to reject the waste heat that is "heat pumped" by the chillers. The chillers themselves typically use CFCs (some use LiBr but those would use engine jacket water and exhaust cooling water from a cogen system). Then they have waste heat that uses a cooling tower. That's how I've seen it done when i worked at a hotel decades ago.

So: chiller makes chilled water at 50-55F on one end, and heats the cooling water (on the other end of the chillers) which leaves at 80-85F (sometimes hotter) and goes into a partially evaporative cooling tower in a semi-closed system, but of course you get evaporation etc..

So yeah that is the typical design. And cogen systems still need cooling towers.

Re: Astonished

every few decades NW USA gets droughts. Usually it is VERY rainy. But here's the thing: they are under contract to provide water for parts of California, and the contracts may not account for drought periods (as rare as they are, they still happen). In the mid-1970's I recall this happening before, and there was a bit of reform since water got rationed in Oregon while people in LA were hosing down their cars, and of course there was quite a bit of outrage. So yeah, the supply dropped a bit, but the demand stays about the same. And (probably) nobody takes responsibility for the poor planning.

After a year or two, beyond the El Niño and La Niña effects, it should be back to normal. But they need to plan for it and not ignore history. And California needs to stop feeding its limited drinking water to the delta smelt...

(/me bombastically points out that if delta smelt are as delicious as sardines, people would farm them and like cows, we'd NEVER run out, and it would take a LOT LESS WATER do farm them than to dump our limited drinking water into the Sacramento river to "save" them. So let's come up with some good recipes...)

Re: Not all water is potable water, but only potable water is used for cooling at Dalles.

They COULD use grey water... but:

Depending on the quality of 'grey water' keep in mind that water used for cooling towers will affect the atmosphere in the area if there are bacteria etc. in it. Legionaire's Disease came from a cooling towere that had bad bacteria in the water.

Decades ago I worked at a hotel and the air conditioning used a cooling tower. We put a floating pool chlorinater in it to maintain the correct water chemistry. But yeah Legionaire's Disease was recently on people's minds back then, yet the precautions to prevent it were not all that hard.

I suppose if the grey water is as clean as the tap water, it would work well enough for cooling towers. Properly chlorinated, of course.

we have the technology...

I would suggest building de-sal plants if you need more water. There's a really big ocean out there, after all. There's also waste water recycling, sometimes (jokingly) called "toilet to tap", though the effluent treated water is USUALLY cleaner than regular tap water (regardless of whether it was excreted from someone's kidneys).

In a 1st world country there is NO excuse for a shortage of water, ESPECIALLY when you are near the ocean. If you do not have enough, you MAKE MORE. SImple.

San Diego County has a de-sal plant that provides a significant amount of water for the region (I think it is around 20% of total water usage). If more of these plants are built, droughts affecting water availability would be a thing of the past.

NASA advised to study up on what open source, free software, and permissive licenses actually mean

Re: CEO of an undisclosed startup

my corporation has been "a startup" since the early 90's.

Re: What free means

free as in free beer would be "public domain" which is one option.

But, many authors want to restrict what is done with their works. Therefore you have GPL, MIT, BSD, Apache, and other licenses (as well as public domain).

The most common in Linux seems to be GPL, specifically v2 for the kernel (and I hope it never becomes v3). gcc added exceptions for static linking binaries. llvm does not appear to have any such restrictions. And so there is choice.

But seriously it should be plain and obvious how these licenses work,. And since NASA is government, i.e. "the people":, they should either GPL, BSD, MIT, or public domain ANYTHING they create that is not somehow classified (like for military applications).

It seems that photographs taken by the U.S. government are often already treated as public domain. A quick scan of wiki-media proves that. So similarly with software mods done by NASA, especially if they're trying to use Linux on spacecraft or aircraft.

They just need to do what business owners and contractors have done like, forever - put on the lawyer hat for a moment and apply common sense.

(and the FSF gladly answers GPL licensing questions which I've asked before)

Microsoft: Many workers are stuck on old computers and should probably upgrade

Re: Productivity peaked around Windows 2000 Professional, perhaps XP

no flames, just a recommendation: Boot Linux, run XP in a virtualbox VM.

I think that will work best for ya. Try it, you'll like it!!! Use the same license key, even. And backups of an XP VM should be a BREEZE (export virtual machine - voila!)

then you will not need NTFS partitions and can make it 100% Ext4. If you got a new hard drive, did a fresh install, and tar-copied your /home it would go fast, then maybe turn the old NTFS partition into a virtual drive for VBox [I think you might get away with a copy utility for this part]. EVEN FASTER!

Re: "the same kit they had at the start of the pandemic."

my 14 year old spare workstation went titsup recently, had to get new motherboard+cpu+ram+power supply (had a case ready to go though). Same hard drive, though (running FreeBSD). Booted immediately like nothing had happened.

Re: Or

Use more efficient software.

GOOD! JOB! (nice way to lead off the comments)

I might add that Micros~1 should WRITE MORE EFFICIENT SOFTWARE

Oh, the irony of it all...

getting full use out of your hardware is probably more eco friendly than tossing it for something that can run Windows II, regardless of whether or not the old one gets recycled - in the place this stuff is usually made, they are apparently not too concerned with polluting their environment - seen photos of Beijing air quality? And none of these hardware makers, Micros~1 included, would be very happy if China were to implement the kinds of air quality standards (for example) that we have in the places that CONSUME the things they make, for it would increase their costs SIGNIFICANTLY. So, indirectly, they POLLUTE *OVER* *THERE* instead, then attend conferences to show how much they *CARE* about the environment...

(and they could AT LEAST do something practical, instead, that does NOT require replacing perfectly good equipment JUST to run their BLOATWARE)

Waterfox: A Firefox fork that could teach Mozilla a lesson

Re: The Browsers Are The Symptom, not The Problem

you mean HTML, not HTTPS, right? Those are different things.

'curl' can use HTTPS (for example) and return back the web page (or whatever) as a file. A browser RENDERS it. It's this 2nd part (rendering) that seems to be all FUBAR these days...

HTML and CSS and (ugh) Javascript for web pages are over-complicated with never-ending "UP"grades and moving target specs.

THAT is the *nightmare*

Re: I'd love to try Waterfox, but there's a problem...

I sometimes do the build from source option, at least when you are NOT in a hurry and there are no ports/packages available. But depending on your setup, it may take more work than you want to put into it (like manually loading dependencies and source/dev packages on most Linux platforms).

If there are no install instructions, are there at least BUILD instructions for Waterfox? (I see no FreeBSD port for it, either).

Re: Mozilla is the modern Xerox

(someone actually said "mean spirited" and MEANT it? Try being ME some time, you'll grow a shell and start laughing at it)

If _I_ ever meet them, I'll ask why they have NOT fixed the 2D FLATSO AUSTRALIS by PUTTING BACK a PROPER 3D SKEUOMORPHIC UI (as an option, at least) instead of CLONING CHROME...

(I bet a clever person could even do it with CSS)

Re: Handy? In case? Your provider?

you know, e-mail is not that hard (it may take some RTFM'ing but it's not that hard once you understand what needs to be done). I've messed with Perl scripts that work with IMAP to filter things, auto-send mail with data files attached, and things like that. Writing a GUI wrapper around the Perl scripts would NOT be that hard, using GTK or something like it. I think it's been done a few times, too...

(the "use Email" Perl modules also correctly handle SSL and TLS and other such things)

And yeah, NO HTML MAIL if *I* wrote it (MY turn to be an arrogant developer, heh). I'd filter out all HTML elements and display it THAT way as an alternative, for those mail clients that *ARROGANTLY* *DO* *NOT* *SEND* *EQUIVALENT* *PLAIN* *TEXT* along with that (BLANKETY BLANK) HTML content.

And this is ONE thing that Thunderbird has ALWAYS gotten right: "View message content as plain text". ALWAYS selected, on MY mail clients!

I have noticed that a lot of spam mail often says "Hello, xxx" as the only plain text. It becomes a filter (in my mind anyway - need to find out how to train/modify T-bird's filter for that).

No/Incorrect Plain Text ==> JUNK FILE [maybe it can be an addon?]

Re: Open source closed devs

if you use menuconfig every time, you're doing it wrong. (first time useful, though)

I typically just hand-edit the appropriate file(s) and use "make oldconfig", for those increasingly rare cases where dynamic modules cannot be used. Or, if I fix something and just rebuild with the patch applied [and this part is why 'oldconfig' exists].

But now the topic is going off into the weeds, and the point is really that developers aren't making software for other developers. They're making it for THEMSELVES, and TOO OFTEN are arrogantly IGNORING others (including other developers). So we end up with a lot of forked versions of popular projects, ones that are popular because of convenience, not necessarily about how things are implemented.

Maybe it's because not enough of these "developers" worked in 'customer service' jobs when they were teenagers, and INSTEAD were *INDOCTRINATED* (instead of educated) in high school and (especially) college, and ultimately graduated from the "My Shit Does Not Stink" program with honors.

Re: Open source closed devs

the only "monoculture" here seems to be among the "big tech" development groups that manage projects like Gnome, Mozilla, Chromium, yotta yotta and as mentioned already, HOW MUCH OF THAT is directly influenced by Apple, Google, and Micros~1 ???

"We are the Borg" etc.

Re: informative article.

You should realize that microsoft has reached it's claws deep into mozilla at this point as well

Yes, it DOES explain a lot.

Re: root is the new Administrator

you reminded me of those "Cancel or Allow" Mac vs PC commercials

strangely, they stopped...

Re: Waterfox Classic is from FF56, trouble with more websites

some sites tell you to upgrade simply because you are using NoScript (and the latest Firefox, go fig)

Re: Forks are a sign of success.

non-UI features can be deal with via plugins.

It's the "MODERN" UI that irritates me... and they somewhat-recently did it to THUNDERBIRD as well. I used to see actual dialog boxes in settings for T-bird (FreeBSD ports from a couple of years ago, version 60-something - still worked with the retro UI plugin). Not any more. Apparently, THIS is what happens when they "continue to develop" it.

Re: Agree

the simplifications they **FEEL** obliged to push down on us users is infuriating.

emphasis mine. They certainly are NOT THINKING, that's for sure!!

Cisco requires COVID-19 shots for all US staff – even remote workers

Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

I'm demonstrably more productive working from home. All my stuff is here. Often it's better stuff than on site. And I can work when I'm more productive that way. But it takes self-discipline and a LOT of people may not be able to pull that off. There have been a few El Reg articles on this. I suppose I could use a search engine to pull one up but I'll leave that as an exercise for others.

Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

yeah from a medical science perspective you could call certain vaccines "100%" although if you get nitty you can find some risk factors and ineffectiveness in EVERYTHING.

Still, 'cow pox' (the first vaccine ever) helped to establish 'herd imunity' which basically killed smallpox. Of course we still vaccinate people with something that has been well tested for decades as to its safety and effectiveness, to KEEP it that way. And of course, other things too,.

And, seriously, that is the goal of ANY vaccine, to make sure that herd immunity prevents the disease from killing a lot of people. Either partial immunity (mild disease symptoms only) or outright 100% immunity is just as effective. The thing you also want to consider is those who are already immune... where a vaccine might actually be WORSE (a cytokine storm, for example). Only the China Flu seems to have a HUGE number of people trying to mandate those who have already recovered from the disease to get vaccinated ANYWAY... REGARDLESS of any extended risk factors vs NO benefit.

(and that of course reflects a LOT of ignorance about science among those who INSIST on mandating vaccines)

Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

if you only knew how hard I was laughing at the moment...

This reminds me of one of the 'Lethal Weapon' movies where Mel Gibson as Riggs said "Am I getting to you? Am I getting to you? Am I getting to you?"

heh heh heh heh heh

(sometimes this is just TOO much fun!)

Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

I can be your test case, since it's been nearly TWO years since I had my China Flu fever.

Doing fine. Not worried. And if VACCINATED people "can spread" the thing, why does ANY of this matter? Protect YOURSELF, if you fear it. Leave the REST of us ALONE.

Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

heh - the humor in your post is appreciated

Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

It was supposed to be ironic, actually

Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

Do you ACTUALLY have any evidence for this?

how about https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/10/21/81-research-studies-confirm-natural-immunity-to-covid-equal-or-superior-to-vaccine-immunity/

(it only took a couple of minutes to scan past the propaganda front-loading the search results, and find something more relevant)

Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

obvously you have not been paying attention...

(you DO understand what "natural immunity" means, right? it means you recovered from whatever disease you became immune to by recovering from it. Duh.)

Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

here';s a quote attributed to Albert Einstein:

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."

Just thought I'd mention that.

And I shall not live my life in fear, either.

Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

you have an even MORE likely chance of being struck by lightning than you do dying from the China Virus, if you have natural immunity. Like me. No need for a vaccine. And, *I* refuse to live my life in fear. A one-day fever is NOTHING. I just took my usual vitamins and aspirin, drank tequila, slept a lot, and played video games.

Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

heh - good one. 1776 was a PERFECT example of REBELLING against GUMMINT OVERREACH.

Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

I hope you stick to your principles if you catch it.

I had the virus back in January 2020, before anyone heard of the thing. It took the form of a one-day fever, with an encore a week later. I got it from a co-wrker who had just returned from being in China for over a week [he went home sick with the same thing], and 2 weeks later TO THE DAY I got it. So, there is NO way I would be affected by it again. I am naturally immune, and if _you_ ONLY had the vaccine, then MY immunity is most likely better than yours. [THAT would actually be a science-based claim].

Point is, I do not NEED a vax. And I do not WANT one, either. Let someone ELSE have it. And GUMMINT has NO business telling ME what to do, either. I'm old enough to make my OWN decisions (and I'm certain they're BETTER ones than any GUMMINT could make). My objection is GUMMINT OVERREACH.

The best jobs seem to come from small businesses and startups wtih fewer than 100 employees.

At least, that's how *I* see it.

And that kind of exec order from Washington D.C. is NOT CONSTITUTIONAL anyway. Good luck enforcing it, I say.

Re: The medical powerhouse that is CISCO...

you forgot who it was that GOT THE VACCINES DEVELOPED IN THE FIRST PLACE... "Warp Speed" I think it was called. And everyone said it'd take 5 years. Except Trump got it done in less than 9 months by greasing the skids and getting the bureaucracy to COOPERATE.

"finally has a government that takes seriously epidemiology" - then WHY! THE! ONE! SIZE! FITS! ALL! MANDATE! TYRANNY! *EVEN* when NATURAL IMMUNITY EXISTS and is SCIENTIFICALLY KNOWN to be SUPERIOR TO A VACCINE??? It is a WASTE of RESOURCES, at the very least. Give that vaccine to someone who NEEDS it, instead. Nations in Africa seem to have a low vax rate. That might be a good place to send them, for those who WANT them.

No serious epidemiologist would DISAGREE with the OBVIOUS LOGIC that I have stated here.

Re: Get rid of the religious exemption.

I wouldn't wanna work for Cisco [or anyone else like them] anyway. And since natural immunity is WAY better than "the jab" I see no need, for me. Therefore I'll just *REBEL* and NOT get the jab, REGARDLESS, (because "they" are trying to find ways to MAKE US ALL GET IT, so *I* *WILL* *REBEL* - otherwise I probably would've done it eventually, after everyone else who wanted it got theirs).

My Body. My Choice. Right?

(see icon - my medical history is *MY* *BUSINESS* and nobody else's!)

Last I heard a bunch of people have been walking off of their jobs and protesting in NYC over this vaccine mandate nonsense. So, I am not alone.

SQL Server on Linux: Canonical offers official support, AWS Babelfish helps users move to Postgres

Re: Performance is equal to Windows SQL Server?

SQL Server is probably already tweeked for Windows. As such, running on Linux may be "not as tweeked". Linux's file system and network stack are (from what I've seen) MUCH more efficient than Windows and as such there should be a CLEAR advantage to using Linux. But... since the SQL Server code is (as I understand it) CLOSED SOURCE, there is no easy way to find those bottlenecks where Linux may perform "not as well" compared to Windows [and then benchmark it or tweek it yourself and submit a patch].

Since I have not run a comparison, it would be hard to do anything OTHER than speculate based on the tests I have run, in the past. And years ago I determined that Linux and FreeBSD were about 30% faster for copying large files using SMB networking. In short, copy the same file with equivalent computers. and see how long it takes. But as I have not done this test since the mid-noughties, it's hard to say what the comparison is now. Yet, the PERCEIVED performance of Win-10-nic vs Windows 7 and XP does not show any serious improvement (and may in fact be "not as good" with Win-10-nic) I would venture to guess that my measurements in the mid noughties are still relevant.

So perhaps a tweeked SQL Server running on Linux could be 30% faster overall? That would be MY guess.

Re: Why?

yes I can see that you want to use a Linux server, and you are SO correct for doing that, but running Micros~1 SQL Server instead of something like PostgreSQL... THAT is the question *I* am thinking of!!!

I just can't see any REAL reason to use SQL Server instead of "something else"

It has been 15 years, and we're still reporting homograph attacks – web domains that stealthily use non-Latin characters to appear legit

Re: Surely the answer is

right - OCR "homonyms" should all translate to the appropriate charset before name lookups happen, or at least before registrars accept them as non-duplicates.

And doing periodic name cleanup might be a good idea, requiring takedowns of any domain that's a lookalike (and assuming they're being used for fraud).

So basically construct a map of UTF-8 chars to ISO8859-1 lookalike chars, then run every domain name through that matrix, see if duplicates show up.

I assume other-than-english lingos might need something similar.