Posts by bombastic bob

Twitter faces existential threat from world's richest techbro

a sarcasm icon

will this do?

Windows 11 usage stats within touching distance of... XP

RE: This situation will likely continue [until] businesses are given compelling reason to upgrade

But... But... NEW! SHINY! New *AND* Shiny! And... and... and... ELEVEN! Yeah we turned windows up to 11 this time! Yeah, it's a HIGHER NUMBER than Ten, which means BETTER!

So, we MUST upgrade, even if it reduces efficiency or adds to the daily cost of operation.

</snark>

They want us to "up"grade for the sake of "up"grading, when there is NO! CLEAR! ADVANTAGE! to doing so (and very very likely, an (un?)intended cost goes along WITH it).

Once again, Micros~1 appears to have NO clue about what customers want or need.

[I guess their sales and marketing droids cannot sell ice cubes in Siberia any longer]

ESA: Fly me to the Moon, just not on a Russian rocket

Re: Crew flights delay

better to have delays than dead astronauts...

Lockheed needs to drop their bureaucracy and get off their backsides and step up to the plate.

(yeah easy to say from my arm chair,huh!)

Re: If the Ruskies want it...

lets not forget they still have stuff.

And they have some really good engineers, too, a few of whom I worked with directly a decade or so ago.

Too bad their GOVERNMENT SUCKS...

(If Vlad the Putinator just STOPS attacking Ukraine and pulls out, and all troops go back to Russia, and they just lick their wounds for a bit instead of pursuing this STUPID war, they'd soon have PLENTY of money to improve their space program... but since Pootie is BAT GUANO INSANE, I doubt he will. He thinks like he's Stalin)

Microsoft-led move takes down ZLoader botnet domains

Re: Whack-a-Mole

In the 'pest control' business, they call it 'pest control' and not 'pest elimination'.

The fact that you can not eliminate them all does not stop you from trying.

As I was told by a pest control guy once (when it was my job to lead the pest controllers around the hotel to service the baits and spray stuff), you do not eliminate them, but if you do not see them, they are "controlled". It's when you start to see the pests that they are no longer "in control" and you need to take additional action.

Similarly, botnets and online criminals, in general. Eliminating them (or at least, TRYING to) is "pest control".

icon, kinda like skull and cross-bones on pest spray.

Congrats where it is due

Although Mictros~1 most definitely has a stake in this (chances are that botnets consist of WINDOWS machines), I have to congratulate them on a job well done, taking out another botnet.

Beers, sirs!

Intel’s neurochips could one day end up in PCs or a cloud service

I am intrigued by the possibilities

Looking forward to having voice command and general speech recognition that does NOT transmit what I say (or room background noise) to "the cloud" but instead keeps it on some device that I own and have control over.

I'd also like to see this as a USB HID device with hotkey support and things like that. Or it could even be a new class of HID device (not a keyboard or mouse or touch screen) with the kinds of capabilities that allow you to input hot-key combinations or "run this application" kinds of commands.

All good, I think! And, NO "out to the cloud" with what I'm saying or what background noises are in the room at the moment...

COVID-19 contact tracing apps were suggested as saviors. They sometimes delivered

how much of that mortality was attributable to "the virus" and how much was from:

* untreated medical conditions OTHER than "the virus"

* drug abuse

* psychological (including suicide)

* stress-induced (like heart attacks and some strokes)

* outright dangerous behavior driven by anger over the lockdowns, etc.

There are many SECONDARY causes of death not directly attributable to "the virus" that have SIGNIFICANTLY increased since January of 2020 and I have only listed a FEW of them. But they COULD be attributed to THE POLICIES FORCED UPON US BY GOVERNMENTS....

Re: Apart from not wanting, nor needing a Smartphone

I flat-out *REFUSED* to get a stupid corona virus test for several reasons:

* I had the damned virus before anyone (outside of China) had heard of it and got it from someone who'd been there over a week and had symptoms the day he came back to the office [and I was there for a meeting that day]. It lasted a day and returned in a milder form a week later, the first exactly 2 weeks after i was exposed.

* I probably had a mild version of every variant and was not all cowering in fear about ANY of it. Slight fever and head cold symptoms that go away within a day. Whoopee twiddle. I did not care WHAT it was since it never really affected me. And...

* The LAST thing *I* needed was to be QUARANTINED over a *FEVER* or a *COLD* with MILD SYMPTOMS.

* The panic and hysteria were NAUSEATING and I pressed the "F-it" button.

And if I am evar *MANDATED* to carry a smart phone with some stupid TRACKING [CR]APP on it, it would be with the battery REMOVED. [oops I forgot to put it in]. Last stupid mandate I completely IGNORED and nobody cared.

And a big DOWN vote for the ENTIRE ARTICLE, and EVERY DAMNED ONE of those stupid TRACKING [CR]APPS, along with the HYSTERIA-BASED RESPONSES from gummints.

(and I am not EVEN starting on a PROPER rant, when you look at JUST WHAT HAS HAPPENED in places like Shanghai where PEOPLE ARE LOCKED IN THEIR HOMES and SCREAMING OUT OF WINDOWS over it, or some of the more HEINOUS policies that have been implemented in AUSTRALIA of all places)

So YEAH, the LAST thing *I* will ever be is TRACKED for ANY reason by carrying a phone with me.

Twitter preps poison pill to preclude Elon Musk's purchase plan

Re: Content moderation

SOME moderation, such as for harassing, pejorative, and libelous/slanderous posts, is needed. These should be "moderated" (or even deleted) with the possibility of banning repeat offenders. "Trolls" in other words, whose goal is simply to be a pain in the ass, need to be "gleaned" (more or less), sorta like a bouncer ejecting them from a bar.

And of course, harassment lawsuit information (like who to serve with the paperwork) needs to be readily made available so that INDIVIDUALS who have been harassed or libeled can have a legal remedy, especially if being stalked. That would be CRIMINAL in some jurisdictions. (I am never against moderating against criminal activity)

However, In My Bombastic Opinion, everything ELSE (whether accurate or not according to their standards, approval, or "liking") needs to be ALLOWED and NOT FILTERED nor FLAGGED nor in ANY other way HINDERED.

This should be OBVIOUS. Otherwise, speech is not "free", nor can it be.

(Why is "the extreme" always inflated to become the alleged intent of free speecdh advocates? because THE LEFT FEARS FREE SPEECH, that's why!)

[it is a fair bet that THIS is what Elon wants, and I'm 100% supporting his efforts to TAKE OVER TWITTER]

Re: 'I have much trouble agreeing with'

So what. Let people say what they want

Re: 'I have much trouble agreeing with'

I am having trouble figuring out whether I agree with you or are just confused.

Free speech: yes. "Big Tech" manipulating and controlling the masses through censorship: No.

That's how I see it. I like narrowing it down to a simple concept.

(NOTE: pejorative, harassing, and libelous/slanderous speech is NOT "free speech" In My Bombastic Opinion. Everything ELSE should be ALLOWED, and NOT censored)

Re: And again, no.

how did you get THAT out of wanting FREE speech?

(leftist "logic"? what is next, an accusation of RACISM?)

We both know that promoting FREE speech is *NOT* the same as promoting *HATE* speech.

Re: And again, no.

Twitter, through its content moderation, is limiting free speech.

And I thought such a think was obvious to the most casual observer.

Looking forward to "the left" squirming over this...

(oh NOZE our masses-manipulation-system is in DANGER of being... UNCENSORED!!!)

All In My Bombastic Opinion of course!

Google issues third emergency fix for Chrome this year

Re: How happy I am

practice "safe surfing". One aspect already mentioned, NOT surfing the web with administrator privileges

I go one step further - do not surf the web on a WINDOWS computer (and use NoScript type plugins whenever possible, especially when following links to sites you have not been to before and do not already trust and even THEN, limit what runs or sandbox the browser)

that, and not reading mail in HTML form - text only (does Micros~1 mail program use the chrome engine to display HTML mail? yeah NOBODY ever e-mails spam with vulnerabilities and/or script in them)

anyway, captain obvious for the rest of it

BOFH: The evil guide to upgrading switches

Re: I loved total control

I imagine the asset management database was unrecoverably lost as part of the switch failure...

And ALSO: How do you get "that irritatingly bureaucratic tracking pcrocedure" to go away?

But luckily change-control was one of those management fads easily stifled with a relentless campaign of punctiliously observing the change control procedures for even the tiniest change.

Summary: Eliminate the idiotic bureaucratic "solution" by adhering to it as strictly as possible

Microsoft's huge Patch Tuesday includes fix for bug under attack

Re: why NFS ?

I had to install Interix/SFU/SUA/whatever to get NFS functionality in the past. And WSL (now) apparently is a built-in, and apparently is derived from (or maybe just is) actual Linux code, with contributions (as I understand it) from Canonical. I thought this was apparent, but maybe not?

Anyway THAT was my point. I was assuming this was general knowledge and not being captain obvious to set up the explanation first...

or is it not as I thought it was?

why NFS ?

If Micros~1's NFS implementation (assuming WSL, and maybe Ubuntu/Canonical) then HOW/Why an NFS vulnerability?

Micros~1 must have screwed the pooch on the implementation, or is this a Canonical/Ubuntu problem as well?

(I am saddened)

Climate model code is so outdated, MIT starts from scratch

Re: I just have to LAUGH at the level of cluelessness here...

0.03%, 0.04%, whatever. Any difference is ultimately based on round-off, when and where the data was collected, and the atmospheric and water body temperatures at the time. When it is warmer, the CO2 levels will be higher since a) bodies of water that retain most of the carbonates in the world have a lower capacity to contain them, either as CO2 gas or carbonates, and b) rain has a lower affinity for absorbing the CO2 out of the atmosphere. There are more factors also but that's the point. 0.04% is a ballpark figure that is generally considered to be accurate. It is also TINY especially when compared to WATER VAPOR, which NOBODY is trying to control for some reason, and yet by my estimate changes in water vapor in the atmosphere have 100 TIMES THE EFFECT when compared to any corresponding changes in CO2. That was my opinion, yes, based on the IR absorption spectrum and the amount of it found in the atmosphere. Btu when you compare the SOCIETAL HYPERVENTILATION over CO2 and complete LACK OF CONCERN over humidity and clouds, I think my point becomes obvious. right?

and therefore if those HIGHLY INACCURATE MODELS apparently MAKING BAD ASSUMPTIONS in the FIRST place, were re-written in PYTHON vs FORTRAN, it would make NO difference in how BAD they are. This is like assuming a geocentric universe and then making the math fit the planetary motion as observed from earth. Moon and Sun, ok, because they appear circular. Everything ELSE, however, was a Ptolomaic NIGHTMAIRE. ("But, But, math proves it!" - must have been what they were thinking, right?)

I just have to LAUGH at the level of cluelessness here...

FORTRAN code, when properly written, is as efficient (and possibly MORE efficient) than code written in any OTHER compiled language.

I taught myself FORTRAN back in the late 70s on a university computer. In the early 90's I was in the M.i.S. department at a company writing stuff in FORTRAN for the ASK/MANMAN system. NOT! HARD!

But the problem is NOT the lingo in which these "climate change" models were written. IT! IS! THE! FACT! THAT! THE! ENTIRE! PREMISE! IS! JUST! PLAIN! WRONG!

WHY does ANYONE believe that these FAILED CLIMATE CHANGE MODELS, that have been WRONG time and time again for DECADES are worth ANY kind of creditibiltiy? BLAMING THE PROGRAMMING LINGO is *JUST* *PLAIN* *LAME*

Making an issue about FORTRAN is MEANINGLESS. It's those nearly-always-wrong algorithms that are BOGUS that need to JUST GO AWAY.

It's JUST as bad as claiming that CO2 is causing anthropogenic climate change in the FIRST place, *ESPECIALLY* when you look at the REAL science, that CO2 is at equilibrium at about 0.04% of the atmosphere (refer to basic chemistry when understanding an equilibrium state) both biologically AND chemically, is at a STABLE LEVEL that varies a bit according to temperature (and does NOT cause the temperature change) because of solubility of gasses in large bodies of water, *AND* has a *TERRIBLE* infrared absorption spectrum for IR radiation that normally escapes the earth to cool it at night, specifically THOSE FREQUENCIES corresponding to ACTUAL TEMPERATURES found on earth. in short, a TERRIBLE greenhouse gas that VARIES VERY LITTLE from ANYTHING that humans do, and is basically a NON-FACTOR unless your goal is to CONTROL PEOPLE by making it EXPENSIVE to do normal every day things with travel, electricity, and FREEDOM.

Sea levels NOT rising, not flooding coastal cities by 2000, or 2020, or any OTHER time for that matter.

Just HOW MUCH hype and nonsense (to justify price gouging on energy and restricting our freedom) must we COLLECTIVELY SWALLOW before WAKING THE HELL UP?

Why the Linux desktop is the best desktop

Re: "Linux Desktop"

how did you get 'that' out of what I wrote? pressuring computer makers to ship with windows was a HUGE part of their marketing. Oh well I guess I did not happen to use the correct key words and tricky phrases and dot all of the 'i's and cross all of the 't's to satisfy the criticism algorithm you happened to use when you wrote that, but whatever...

Re: The joys of Linux

And Linux has so many patches that practically every day is patch day.

and you have personally enumerated these WHERE exactly?

See: https://www.logicalfallacies.org/ look under "burden of proof" "anecdotal" and "Argumentum ad Populum"

Re: "Linux Desktop"

Choice of desktop has been one of the main reasons for failure of Linux on the desktop

No.

* Linux on the desktop is NOT a failure. Otherwise, there would not be so MUCH choice since nobody would spend time on what's needed to make choice even POSSIBLE

* Micros~1 and Apple spend BOATLOADS of money on MARKETING. A good marketer could sell ice cubes in Siberia.

The only reason we are using Windows on our desktops is because of marketing, which included pressuring computer makers to ship the OS pre-installed on all of their computers, and NOT offering alternatives.

Re: "Linux Desktop"

No I don't, never have, and never will, play Stairway to Heaven - not in a guitar shop or anywhere else.

It's that 2nd chord in the riff that irritates the staff, because people usually mess it up. If they could play it as well as Led Zeppelin did (most do not) nobody would mind. (my mother owned a music store until she retired a decade or so ago)

And the shop will do best if they have a wide range of guitars with different neck, pickup, and body styles, because different human hand and human body shape and personal desire for "that sound". 12 year old girls and 40 year old men probably want different guitar shapes, let alone colors etc. - and ALL of them need to be set up properly with new strings to be easier to play. And you always tune them to E flat because everyone always has to re-tune it and cranks up the pitch so at the end of the day you quickly tune them back down so you aren't always replacing broken strings...

(/me wonders if there is a Linux equivalent to playing 'Stairway to Heaven' in a guitar shop)

you did cause me to realize that the UI "designers" at Micros~1 that seem to *FEEL* (not think) that ONE SIZE FITS ALL, are _NOT_ guitar musicians, nor JAZZ musicians (or anything involving improvisation) because of their apparent 'collective vs individual' approach favoring 'collective' and "one size fits all".

Re: re. Anyone who tells you Linux is hard to use wasn't paying attention

unless both tests involve similar video hardware, its an apples to oranges comparison.

The RPi's video hardware and/or broadcom's video core may be wut dun it.

(there are often issues involving refresh rate that can cause Xorg to pick a particular resolution. The monitor reports its capabilities and the video driver picks the right mode. You can edit the Xorg config to manually set resolution, which I have occasionally needed to do. Usually the culprit is a video adapter trying to use an unsupported refresh rate for the monitor for some odd reason. Since this is a config issue it is not somthing a newb would be able to manage without assistance. Fortunately a search engine generaly finds the solution in the form of 'edit this file' if you spend a minute or two searching on the monitor name and the computer hardware and the words 'Linux' and 'video')

Intel commits to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040

Why is this HOAX still being treated like it is RELEVANT?

This whole "greenhouse gas" nonsense (note: CO2 is a *TERRIBLE* greenhouse gas - just look at the infrared absorption spectrum for IR frequencies that correspond to temperatures on earth, as compared to something like WATER) is a bunch of touchy-feely PAP for the UNSCIENTIFIC "experts" to CONTROL "compliant" people with, claiming that TECHNOLOGY and FREEDOM (i.e. use of fossil fuel energy) is "damaging": the planet somehow... and so we must EMPOWER "THEM" to control OUR LIVES or some other equally *EVIL* plan.

Does ANYONE *STILL* buy into this *NONSENSE* ??? *SERIOUSLY* ???

Beijing approves first new video games in nine months

Re: Starving for it

I'm glad SOMEBODY said it. Human rights abuses INCLUDE *RIDICULOUS* *LOCKDOWNS*

Re: Do books need to be approved as well?

Just like communists to pick winners and losers.

No freedom under communism. No "Equity" either. NO fairness. Social credit score is likely to be a factor.

All gummint can do is gum up the works, and COMMUNISM is the WORST form of gummint.

(I am saddened!)

Nokia quits Russia over Ukraine invasion

Re: Western governments have expressed concerns...

the problem is the Russian government (specifically Pootie) and not the Russian people.

I think the sanctions and whatnot are being applied in the wrong places.

PC sales start to ebb as pandemic buying spree ends: IDC

Re: Reports of the death of PC have been greatly exaggerated

right - a lot of marketing hype that's based on "PC Sales of the moment" gets it wrong. A big example, just a few years ago, was the assumption that the PC was "dead" and EVERYONE was either using a slab or a phone now. Micros~1 wrongly risked everything on "One Windows, everywhere" and made their desktop OS (8.0 i particular) look like a PHONE OS, obviously getting it WAY wrong.

So yeah. What you said. From a slightly different angle.

And having or NOT having the money to buy a new computer, with or without "the need" [like working from home, for now, and needing a newer one], is a major factor as well. When people have the money to spend, they are more likely to spend it and not simply "make do" because they cannot afford a new(er) computer.

DO not underestimate

DO not underestimate the effect of inflation factors, increases in energy costs, and the unfortunate predominance of the *kinds* of thinking that uses tax increases on the so-called "rich" (really those trying to BECOME rich, the rich already HAVE their wealth and won't be affected), restrictions on oil drilling, unimpeded illegal immigration, carbon taxation, artificial supply line shortages, yotta yotta yotta... where REAL people and struggling-to-make-a-profit business have to RE-CONSIDER whether buying new computers is actually NECESSARY, remote or on site work notwithstanding.

E-bay still has used boxen last I checked, and I have purchased them multiple times with a pretty good longevity and success rate. My last major purchase was a re-conditioned Lenovo THAT CAME WITH WINDOWS 7 ON IT.

If you ask me, the economic boom caused by LOW WORLD-WIDE ENERGY PRICES (thank Donald Trump's U.S. oil drilling policies for THAT) coupled with the (unfortunate) need for work-at-home computers is what was driving the market.

NOW that the economy is ABOUT TO JUMP THE SHARK (thanks to Biden-Nomics and RIDICULOUS "green" "carbon footprint" nonsense which SENDS OIL MONEY TO RUSSIA and OTHER nations that hate NATO and "the west" in general), REAL people will have LESS money to spend, inflation will reach ANOTHER ALL TIME HIGH (remember the 1970s under Carter) and PC Sales are *JUST* an INDICATOR of what's to come.

There IS a way to fix it. Just STOP it with the LIBERALISM, LEFTISM, SOCIALISM, and START DRILLING for DOMESTIC OIL and MINING for DOMESTIC COAL wherever it is in WESTERN nations. We do this, energy prices drop like A ROCK and the economy will be saved. That and cut spending, cut gummint regulations that get in the way of JOBS and profits for SMALL business, and so on. Yeah, it's the usual Supply Side Economics argument. But, you KNOW i am RIGHT.

It's true. THIS is what is driving the decline in PC sales. That, and Windows 11. Just like Win-10-nic they are giving people NO! REASON! TO! UPGRADE! HARDWARE!.

Unless... you choose Linux. OR FreeBSD.

OpenSSH takes aim at 'capture now, decrypt later' quantum attacks

"legacy" SCP protocol and SFTP

what I am not quite sure about is whether or not the scp command will still work as expected... (or is it JUST the protocol being used that's changing?)

Frequently I specify absolute paths to things to scp around and usually for good reason, such as copying things to an archive on another box.

Sure SFTP is fine too but it may not do exactly what I want. Or is it just the PROTOCOL that is changing>

Given the use of '-O' to keep any existing behaviors I hope nothing truly breaks.

And does this have any effect on rsync? Yeah I use THAT a lot, too.

Direct lithium extraction technique for greener batteries gains traction

Re: How green?

as far as I am concerned the only thing that REALLY matters is a combination of safety, efficiency, and not polluting the environment with toxic chemicals.

So if they can extract lithium at the lowest possible cost, with a high safety record and no gross pollution, I'm all for it, and if it results in lower prices on Lithium, so much the better!

Pretty much "that" for any industry, really.

(I thought it was pretty interesting in the article overall since I was unaware of how Lithium was being mined, or from where in the world it comes)

First Light says it's hit nuclear fusion breakthrough with no fancy lasers, magnets

Re: Paper beat Beta?

if you thermalize neutrons [reduce energies to 'thermal' energies, like that of the ambient temperature] with hydrogenous materal (water, oil, plastic) you can absorb it with natural boron. "Borated polyethelene" is commonly used for this, but after a time it depletes and needs to be replaced.

Typically you'll have a shield tank of water (or oil) closest to the source (or surrounding it), then a layer of regular polyethelene. and for the remaining (now thermalized) neutrons, borated polyethelene that will absorb the vast majority of them.

Thermalized neutrons are also a lot less dangerous, less likely to cause ionizing radiation damage, or activation of materials.

Keeping in mind fusion potentially generates a pretty high neutron flux compared to fission. But if the fusion reactor is surrounded by a tank of water (read: boiler) the heat from gamma AND neutrons would be captured. About 1 foot of water will absorb 90% of neutron, and 3 feet 90% of gamma. So you use a 6 foot border of "boiler": around the reactor to absorb >99% of energy radiated from it, and produce steam. Shielding AND boiler in one! (take boiling and foaming and bubbles into account as well, maybe make it thicker to compensate or pressurize and use a heat exchanger boiler like a fission plant).

interesting idea, but impractical. However, the decay heat could be captured by something similar to a solar cell or peltier device. I think this sort of thing could offer a way to use decay heat from fission waste in a practical way.

Nuclear waste safely encased in concrete generating electrical power and/or hot water for downtown buildings. It's an idea.

(can't be any worse than recycling sewer water and pumping treated water into the city's water supply, which is jokingly called "toilet to tap" but if it is cleaner than the reservoir, who cares where it last was?)

and plutonium is not the problem in nuclear waste. Usuallty it's Cesium, Rubidium, and precursor gasses like Krypton and Xenon, as well as Iodine (which is biologically dangerous when radioactive). But the worst radioactivity problem is Iron when exposed to a neutron flux (rusty water passing through the core) creating Cobalt 60 which accumulates all over the piping in areas of low or unstable flow (the radioactive material is technically known as CRUD, and the places it accumultes, CRUD TRAPS). With a fusion reactor you can expect this to be significantly lower, though I expect it will still be a problem.

Fission products are typically short lived materials that eventually decay to less dangerous materials that have longer half lives. There is a curve, known ad the Mae West curve, that indicates the relative distribution of fission products and in general they're too heavy (too many neutrons) and will usually beta decay into materials with higher atomic numbers and longer half lives. The danger is posed when it becomes a gas (like Xenon and Krypton) which then becomes particulate matter (Cesium and Rubidium) which accumulates in the lungs and sticks around for a few years, doing radiation damage in the process. There is a biological half life that is shorter than the nuclear half life, but still takes quite a while to getr it out of your lungs.

So yeah, dangerous material in fission products. encase in concrete, maybe use the decay heat for something useful, but they need to be stored for >100 years until they can become "less dangerous".

Not against fission power, just being realistic. And concrete would make pretty good shielding material.

And with fusion, if you cause tritium gas or tritiated water to be released, same kind of biological danger in your lungs, etc.. So you have to be careful with it. Not as bad as Cesium and Rubidium, but still bad.

Re: "the gun would shoot a projectile every 30 seconds"

How about a Ma Deuce instead??

"Happiness is a belt-fed weapon"

Unfortunately when the goal of the funding is 'research', actually SOLVING the problems is less important... than "Research" ad infinitum. Seriously.

(unlike the Manhattan project, which focused on RESULTS)

Happy birthday Windows 3.1, aka 'the one that Visual Basic kept crashing on'

Re: GFP

GPF could often be avoided by use of an undocumented API call, "GlobalHandleNoRIP()" - which would not GPF if you passed it a bad handle. But 'GlobalHandle()' and related memory functions WOULD.

Windows 3.1 documented these formerly undocumented functions. I think it was related to an anti-trust investigation, though. Many software devs accused Micros~1 of providing insider knowledge of such things to the software groups responsible for Word, Excel, and so on, giving Micros~1 products a "does not crash" advantage over Word Perfect, Lotus 123, and others.

At least, at that time, it was like that.

(I had to use this function as well, to validate handles passed via messages with DDE, so that random crashes would not happen - DDE with a VB application, was a little buggy)

"Microsoft Bob" - add a 2D FLATTY FLATSO FLATASS McFLATFACE interface, and it could become Windows 12...

Re: Windows 3.1 had a Registry? Huh; I had no idea.

the registry in 3.1 was not NEARLY as polluted as it is now.

OLE 2.0 was in its infancy...

Re: Happy Birthday!

Yes, the first developer conference I went to was Windows 3.1 in beta. "toolhelp.dll" and common dialogs were a HUGE win for everyone, as was the documenting of previously undocumented functions (though some of that was related to anti-trust investigations).

From the article: Windows 3.1 sold very well, with an appealing user interface.

I *HAVE* to say it. Before Windows 3.0 the user interface was *VERY* 2D FLATTY FLATSO FLATASS McFLATFACE.

After Windows 3.0, it was all 3D SKEUOMORPHIC, as was OS/2 1.2 . *IT* *WAS* *THE* *WAY* *THINGS* *OUGHT* *TO* *BE* !!! And, the rate at which people ADOPTED THIS NEW WINDOWS INTERFACE was *EVIDENCE* *OF* *SAME* !!!

Windows 3.1 made Windows 3.0 *BETTER*, more stable, and so on.

But of course I also liked the Start menu in WIn '9x, particularly because it allowed you to have hierarchical menus. As computer systems getr larger you NEED the hierarchical menus, and Program Manager was getting CUMBERSOME. So evolutionary changes like that are welcome.

BUT! THE! REGRESSION! BACK! TO! 2D FLATTY FLATSO FLATASS McFLATFACE (in "modern?" versions) IS! TOTALLY! UNAPPRECIATED!!!

There. I said it.

Happy Birthday, Windows 3.1, which came at a time when I was looking forward to things Micros~1 was creating. At that time, they had a true grasp on the future of computers.

Elon Musk buys 9.2% of Twitter, sends share price to the Moon

Re: ONCE IT IS GONE WE ARE DOOMED

you failed to do your research...

Re: Truth Optional

to use a major share-owning lever to force Twitter to allow Trump back on their platform

I'm hoping for that anyway. I'm sure it's on Elon's list.

Re: No, sorry

"Projecting" - in this particular case, when you assume those you are opposed to are doing THE VERY SAME THING YOU ARE, and then you point fingers and accuse them of it, often FALSELY.

Happens all of the time, from the WOKE, the LEFT, and those who seek to SILENCE OTHERS that disagree with them.

Sad.

(here "brother", ignore the log in my eye, while I remove the spec of sawdust from yours)

Re: No, sorry

see icon

Re: Alternative headline.

from the article: to freely impugn Twitter for exercising its constitutionally protected right to moderate speech on its platform

Or, as I see it, "for exercising its power to control the narrative across its platform by silencing, shadow banning, and outright banning anyone who disagrees with the WOKE LEFT"

Which, of course, is why Elon is buying an interest in it, enough to be on the board, and maybe even a CONTROLLING interest, if need be. He even said so.

I say GO for it.

The alternative: to do what Trump is doing, by making a competing platform. Buying Tw[a,i]tter is probably faster.

DARPA says US hypersonic missile is ready for real world

eh, keep in mind that the Soviet Union (and now Russia) are big on claiming that they can do certain things but do so ONLY to invoke fear. On the other hand, the USA and its allies typically release information on the UN-classified capabilities of a weapon, ship, aircraft, yotta yotta yotta.

Now... HOW long was it before the stealth fighter and stealth bomber were confirmed? They flew for years around places like Area 51 and were claimed to be UFOs but aside from possible REAL tech that is like a space alien aircraft might be, I would assume that most UFO sightings near test ranges are probably "OURS".

/me thinking of an old dog food commercial...

My bomb's bigger than your bomb

My bomb's bigger than yours

My bomb's bigger than your bomb

And it's faster and makes a bigger boom!