Posts by bombastic bob

NASA boss calls for nuclear reactor on the Moon

Re: Humm... cooling!

ALL very good points. I thought this one out long ago...

* - Peltier devices require a sink but you can obtain that by drilling down. The moon's average temp is about 50C below Earth's as I recall, because no air. So the sink would be "reverse geo-thermal". Would require excavation and coolant, probably

* HUGE underground ice patch near the south pole offers water AND the opportunity to make O2 and H2 fuel, plus electricity for whatever. Also coolant.

If a large enough bank of high temperature Peltier devices were used for DC electricity, you would avoid the steam plant completely. For efficiency, not so good, but cost would more than likely make up for it. You could also use thermal energy from nuke waste in a similar manner (Space 1999 anyone?)

Re: Space Race!

It's a tossup between Russia and China, but Putin's too busy playing "Risk" (the board game, remember it?) and CCP China has money to spend but trouble catching up.

I think the intent is to continue leading the way, hopefully with common sense and on budget.

Re: Space Race!

Now please give us back the smart people that NASA had at that time.

I think most of the rocket scientist "smart people" work for SpaceX now.

Trump calls for Intel CEO's head over alleged China links

Re: Witch hunt

I just hope this doesn't turn out into a witch hunt against ethnic Chinese Americans like it did with the Japanese during WWII.

AGREED. (legal) Immigrants are most often SO happy to be in their new country that they become model citizens AND work their ASSES OFF to leverage new opportunities.

A handful retain loyalty and ties to "the old country" but they're easy to spot. Ilhan Omar is one of them.

I do not think Mr. Tan's Chinese heritage drove him to skirt the law. I think it enabled him to make and keep overseas business contacts. It is what he has apparently DONE with those contacts (as you and the article pointed out) that raises both eyebrows and concern...

Re: This goes back further than most people think

pople throw about accusations of racism over the most petty things these days (like NOT being woke) that it does not even sting any more.

Re: This goes back further than most people think

I think down voting posts like yours is the equivalent of randomly throwing darts while partially intoxicated...

Re: Yet Another Diversion.

Her will release no slime, until it is time! (adapted from an old wine commercial)

Seriously DOJ F'd up by hyping it too much. There has been at least one firing since, former FBI director Comey's daughter who had run that investigation for YEARS (apparently). But speculate all you want, this slimy rotting sewer muck investigation WILL see the light of day once victim names and possible underage offenders have been redacted and fully investigated. Really.

Re: Who?

(from article)

Cadence [snip] last month pleaded guilty to and was fined for unlawfully selling its products to Chinese organizations with military connections, despite these being on a US government blacklist. The offenses occurred while Tan was employed as CEO at Cadence.

THIS raised my eyebrows a bit... seems fishy to me. Hopefully will resolve quickly, but then again AMD might be a better choice in the long haul, for Fed grant money (if such a thing continues).

More NASA spacecraft give controllers the silent treatment

were there any solar storms?

another possibility, unusual solar activity

I COULD snarkily add "parts made in CCP China" but I won't... oops, too late!

Trump teases ‘approximately’ 100 percent tariff for imported semiconductors

Re: Rest of the world

Perhaps the rest of the world should insist that the US should open manufacturing sites in the places they want to sell their products?

Already happened. This is at the core of the issue. Except they ended up in S.E. Asia, mostly.

Microsoft hoping to knock users' socks off with Windows XP Crocs

How about XP-themed OS instead?

XP had a useful uncomplicated control panel, a nice 3D Skeuomorphic appearance, "just worked" when I did things, did not choose to update itself at difficult times, did not spy on me, did not irritate me with ADS, let me change any color I wanted to, worked better with font size choices, and looked the same for close to 10 years (and I was happy with that).

How about JUST release XP as 64-bit with all of the driver and architecture updates (minus the need for SIGNED DRIVERS) and you could SELL it for $200/copy and people would PAY IT *JUST* to escape TIFKAM *HELL* of WINDOWS 10/11 !!!

Make Redmond angry by setting up Windows 11 with a local account

By default, Microsoft tries to prevent you from setting up Windows 11 using a local account

Windows 10 also did this but if you hit the "NO" button [or whatever it is] and confirm 3 or 4 times you can get past the "Strong-Arming".

Looks like 11 is WORSE. Since I'll NEVER use "[b]One[d]" drive, "The Store", or allow Micros~1 to know what and when I'm doing "whatever", it is becoming even MORE imperative to use "local only".

I recently started working on a project that requires control software to run on a Windows 11 touch screen as well as Linux. It was sent to me pre-config'd with a local user that has no password. It's the same user on all of them, apparently. My guess is someone went through the trouble of making such an image, then 'ghosted' it, and cloned it on multiple touch screen computers, altering licensing as needed...

Users left scrambling for a plan B as Dropbox drops Dropbox Passwords

Re: KeePass

I've been using the C language version 'KeePassXC' on Linux and BSD for a long time. The ".kdbx" file can be stored anywhere and securely shared.

(NOTE: KeePassXC is unencumbered by .NOT and does not have MONO. It's in FreeBSD ports as security/keepassxc)

First release candidate of systemd 258 is here

Re: hold on there

the problem (in SystemD) is FINDING WHAT SERVICE NAME, amongst the bowels of THE BLOB [SystemD] - is not possible to just grep the init.d files after having done a ps with The BLOB, now is it...? and so you do MORE searching than necessary because it is Micros~1 style monolithic BLOATWARE.

Anyone who likes SystemD, try figuring out how to turn off everything that interferes with a serial port that you are trying to use to command an external device... I'll wait. [the list is pretty long AND not obvious - had to research this on an RPi a few years ago and it seemed to take forever - bloody patch on the wall where I kept slamming my head in FRUSTRATION]

the 'service' command also works in FreeBSD

Re: hold on there

Devuan is generally the only Linux distro I use these days [except for embedded things where I may have little choice]

It's not infected by "The Blob" - my new name for SystemD)

If this new login-within-a-login "multi home dir" crap gets in the way of application development, I'll just REFUSE TO SUPPORT IT!

White House bans 'woke' AI, but LLMs don't know the truth

Re: real arttificial intelligence

Actually, forcing designers to remove bias would MORE OFTEN tell you about things that disturb you. But saying things like "your neighbor is a racist" would be a bit like libel, wouldn't it?

Truth by it's definition is cold, hard, and insensitive, as well as objective. There's your measuring stick. Anything else is probably trying to sell you something...

avoiding confirmation bias and overwhelming opinions

See title - it's really just THAT.

We asked Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and Meta whether any of their current models meet these requirements. None of them responded.

I don't see Elon in that list... what did HE say?

I have often noticed that the "overwhelming opinion" side often takes precedence in grok 3. With grok 4 I don't have the money to try it or I would. If 75% of people say the earth is flat, in articles, publications, and [social] media, grok will happily tell you the earth is flat using the very proofs people give in their publications (etc.). And THEN (with a different topic I actually TRIED this) you continue the topic with "please consider [insert indisputable fact] and modify the analysis accordingly" and it will confirm the fact (thank you AI) and THEN completely re-do the analysis with the new info, getting a completely different [more truthful and accurate] result. And so on.

SO: **WHY** did the analysis NOT consider these "additional facts" BEFORE???

And, **THAT** is the problem!!!

Re: Trying to follow this could stop AI usage in it tracks!

"diverse" and "sensitive" seems to have been the problem all along... [when forced by those who only see one side]

Re: OK

OT but I'll bite - what if there are ongoing investigations and they're just not saying anything to avoid tainting them? Apparently a LOT of evidence can NOT be released (certain kinds of porn confiscated by FBI, for example, and info about underage victims).

But I agree - at some point, when all investigations are done, they need to release it.

Wayback 0.1 debuts as early Wayland server for X11 diehards

Re: worried

The creeping sickness of systemd, wayland, gtk4/adwaita etc.

Makes FreeBSD and "we refuse to comply with your nonsense" Linux distros like Devuan look better and better.

The real reason why Trump is killing the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawai'i

Mauna Loa has recent activity as I understand. Last major eruption in 2022, and there is some gassing and seismic activity within the last month. But the effects of volcanic gassing is not always from the cinder cone. Surrounding soil for MILES can emit gasses, which is one reason that total CO2 from volcanic activity is hard to measure, depending...

hiow can humans add CO2 to the atmosphere when CO2 is at equilibrium with the hydro cycle, oceans, lakes, plants, etc. and its production from volcanoes and respiration [and some from burning things]?

The atmosphere is NOT a BUCKET. And it is NOT an isolated system. To think a molecule of CO2 once made by burning oil STAYS and ACCUMULATES is a denial of established science, particularly CHEMISTRY. If you think I'm WRONG, just go back and study equilibrium reactions. When you understand what a PHOSPHATE TITRATION ANALYSIS is, and how to determine total phosphate concentration from it, then you'll understand why CO2 is at equilibrium.

safe CO2 levels for humans

all humor aside, 20000 ppm (around 2%) is about the maximum safe amount of CO2 in air (assuming enough O2). On a sub, the CO2 scrubbers generally keep CO2 below 2%, though they are ineffective below about 1%.

When it gets above 2% people get headaches and become grumpy. Up to 5% before it gets REALLY bad. I think toxicity is above 7%, could be wrong though. In the movie Apollo 13 they were yelling at one another as CO2 levels kept rising, no doubt a contributing factor if that part is historically accurate.

CO2 is NOT the climate control knob

Are we to believe that human activity does not (cannot?) materially affect temperature or climate?

NOT from CO2. Other effects like "urban heat island" and gross pollution from particulates have a limited (but local) effect.

Re: Terry Pratchett observation

I expect that in the future, the Trump administration will reply 'there is no evidence' to questions linking greenhouse gas emissions to global warming. This is not 'shoot the messenger', but 'bury your head in the sand'.

WRONG. It is ADMITTING THE TRUTH

So the problem IS the expense. Perhaps private funding would continue the analysis. We really do NOT need it, in the face of several billion dollars of the people's tax meoney.

I still do not like how the data is ABused by warmists when they clearly ignore the saturation of CO2's effect, that CO2 lags temperature when plotted over time, that ice core data shows many times higher CO2 levels in the past, and even the chemistry realities of CO2 solubility in water vs temperature and how CO2 levels below 200 ppm would kill most plants.

Anyone believing in CO2-based climate change has to IGNORE A **LOT** OF OBVIOUS SCIENCE **FACTS** THAT ARE INDISPUTABLE...

"not listening" is really DISAGREEING

reading lies, half-truths, and outright propaganda and buying into the lies are two different things.

It's like saying "YOU are NOT LISTENING" when in fact, I hear just fine. I'm DISAGREEING!!!

"But, But, 1+1 is clearly 3, you MUST have something WRONG with you if you cannot see it, you must NOT have read the article and are obviously NOT LISTENING"

^^^ kinda like that.

Thanks for actually saying the obvious!!!

I'm glad at least A FEW PEOPLE are paying attention, instead of chasing Henny Penny around and believing her "sky is falling" UNSCIENTIFIC HYSTERIA!

CO2 is NOT the "Climate Control Knob". Its effect on temperatures was saturated OVER "200 ppm ago".

The USA is NOT buying the self-shooting-foot AGW via CO2 nonsense. We have TONS of carbon-based fuel, it is high quality and cheap, and windmills are SILLY but if Don Quixote must tilt them over "climate change" he can do it SOMEWHERE ELSE.

We'll be the ones burning carbon-based fuels and nuclear fuels to power AI for the future!!! AND, NOBODY is going to STOP us with these LIES about CO2 and AGW "climate change"!

Carbon is the 4th most abundant element in our solar system. The mantle is FILLED with it. It is light weight and floats on top of heavier semi-liquid rock in the mantle. It works its way into areas to form oil, natural gas, coal, and other chemicals [some of them NASTY] that are regularly spewed by VOLCANOES. So in addition to fossils, a LOT of the carbon in the crust came from the MANTLE, ready for US to extract and burn.

Mt. Etna is one of the BIGGEST CO2 PRODUCERS in the WORLD, as well as a site in the South Pacific just North of New Zealand. NOT surprising, nearby "science monitoring" stations show CO2 levels going up, not just from the volcanoes, but from warmer water due to solubility rules.

CO2 LAGS TEMPERATURE OVER TIME. It does NOT CONTROL IT! It goes up as a CONSEQUENCE of higher temperatures.

REAL scientists know this. And, so do I. *I* will *NOT* accept THE LIES from CLIMATE ACTIVISTS!

Google plugs AI into nuclear reactor biz – what could possibly go wrong?

Re: Current reactors?

If you know what those "better ways" are, I recommend getting a position with Westinghouse...

All snark aside, the 2nd law of thermodynamics hasn't changed in the last 70 years so I think PWR design will remain for a long time.

Besides, the AP-1000 puts out just over 1000MW of electricity. Being modular that's pretty good, so you should be able to build them near data centers.

As much noise as people make about thorium, liquid sodium, and gas-filled reactor systems, the PWR has many design benefits with respect to safety, longevity, and power reliability. So there ya go.

[I used to operate a reactor on a sub in the U.S. Navy]

Nearly 3 out of 4 Oracle Java users say they've been audited in the past 3 years

Re: Free Libre Open Source Java

Blame IBM for naming it AND pronouncing it like "Sequel" like it's "Server, the second one" followed by "Server III, Oh Hell No!"

Marketeers. Go fig. It's "Es Queue EL" DAMMIT!!!

Re: Free Libre Open Source Java

I'm a fan of PostgreSQL, but ANYTHING can turn into a nightmare scenario... [however, being a Micros~1 product helps]

From article: More than half of survey participants (54 percent) said their organization spent more than $100,000 a year on resolving licensing non-compliance issues, while 27 percent said the figure was more than $500,000 a year.

it is beyond me where this particular choice came from, and how it grew into such a MONSTER!!!

A software-defined radio can derail a US train by slamming the brakes on remotely

Re: Hold Up a Moment

it would be for an emergency stop no doubt, as the old style brakeman might have had to do. If you tow a trailer and trailer brakes don't stop too, you get a "jack-knife" effect. Same with trains, I'd assume, with hundreds of trailers in one train. You need brakes at the rear as fast as possible for emergency stop.

In the USA it is common to see freight trains with more than 100 cars, multiple engines, and so on.

mountainous terrain and urban areas limit where tracks can go. The entire US West coast, for example, doesn't really have room for more tracks, as I understand it. Southern CA is probably the best example, from LA to San Diego, The commuter trains do not operate at night or in the middle of the day when it's pretty much all freight trains, Some passenger trains operate at night and mid-day, but not that many. Other than commuter trains, passenger train traffic is comparatively small in the US. It's mostly freight trains.

I was thinking earler that wifi-like existing protocols, or at least SSL, would get the job done. An engineer or two given a month and an RPi-zero and a radio might set up a nice solution that could be deployed in a few months.

GParted: Still the best free partitioner standing – unless you're on a 32-bit box

Re: Medicat and Ventoy

I'd guess you would need grub or similar to choose between them.

Recently I built a "latest Devuan" boot image on a popular branded 512G USB stick-drive that was surprisingly inexpensive. I used VirtualBox to do it on FBSD by associating the USB drive with virtual media (not hard, instructions on how are commonly available). If I'd thought of what you did I could have partitioned the drive to have all of those others on it, too.

Pentagon snaps up ownership stake in America's only rare earths mine

Re: Defence

King "Bidas" [so named because everything he touched turned to CRAP] would have (if he'd had any remaining brain cells) contracted it all out to his (son's) number one contributor, CCP CHINA! That is, for a few $billion in KICKBACKS "to the BIG guy".

I happen to LIKE the transparency and use of government contracts to ensure we can STILL BUILD OUR WEAPONS WITHOUT KISSING CCP CHINA'S ARSE!!! If things go well, we may even EXPORT THESE MINERALS along with OIL an COAL and Natural Gas! (You can thank us later for the inexpensive fuel and electricity in a few years).

(Trump and MAGA GOP are NOT like the D-Rats, who were all too willing to sell us off to the highest bidder and "manage the decline")

Re: Sounds a bit...

defense contracts are NECESSARY - otherwise the DoD would run ALL of the factories. And the bureaucracy would be >5 times the production staff.

Instead, they do contracts with the private sector. Duh.

Semiconductor industry could short out as copper runs dry

Re: Lustrous

Ancient Egyptians used a lot of copper in jewelry as I understand. So do we but it gets a nice gold plating first.

Copper, silver, and gold have the same valence. Worth noting

Climate change could pose a threat to the technology industry - DOOOOOOM!!!

Same Henny Penny, same Chicken Little, different thing to DOOM about.

From the cheap seats: CO2 DOES NOT CONTROL THE CLIMATE!!! it LAGS temperature, its effect as a GH gas was SATURATED "over 200 ppm ago", and ANYONE with a BRAIN can find this information on-line instead of being HERDED into a PANIC by those who BENEFIT from the CHAOS!!!

Oh, but some people **FEEL** important, I guess, when they DEMAND that OTHERS fall under the DOOMSDAY DELUSION.

As for water availability, the Earth is COVERED with it. To go with AI's need for water, looks like De-Sal plants are a likely solution. We pipe OIL everywhere, hy not water as well???

I wonder sometimes if SOLVING problems is JUST TOO BORING for the media when compared to PANICKING...

Gridlocked: AI's power needs could short-circuit US infrastructure

Re: There is a simple fix - which ensures that it will not be done

The capital cost can be SHARED with utilities and investors, paid back over time. It'll work.

Re: All the people moaning

gummint subsidies nearly ALWAYS come with strings and pocket-lining [Not for YOU. For THEM+friends].

And the "green scam" is driving a LOT of that. windmills and solar are a BIG part of the scam!

Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority"

Re: 123 jiggawatts

But, the B in BTU stands for 'British'!

Re: How did they solve the tap-water problem?

Taxes and regs and power - oh there AREtaxes, ON ELECTRICITY!

According to grok, avg electricity cost is 17.45 cents / kWh. California? 31.77 cents / kWh. That's right, DOUBLE!!!

This is ENTIRELY due to regulations and taxes. 31.77– (14.73 to 19.64) = 12.13 to 17.04¢/kWh where estimated reg+tax cost is:

IGFC: 4.23¢ Public Purpose Programs: 3.18–4.77¢ Wildfire Mitigation: 4–6¢ Renewable Energy Mandates: 3–5¢ Local Taxes: 0.32–0.64¢

Total: 14.73–19.64¢/kWh

The Analysis

Re: How did they solve the tap-water problem?

The **BIGGEST** help gummint can do: STAY OUT OF THE WAY and make sure EVERYONE ELSE DOES, TOO. You know, the SUE-ers, obstructionists, enviro-wackos, SLAPP lawyers, corrupt politicians, blah blah blah

Re: Horseshit

scrubbers in the exhaust stacks should help clean up coal power. Better tech should be able to recovr the removed chemicals economically. It's another tech to pursue. It works at night, during extreme weather, and could theoretically burn plastic that's not getting recycled.

Re: How did they solve the tap-water problem?

it's actually very simple: Have the investors in the data centers build a power plant next to it. If they're smart it will be some kind of co-generation system where exhaust heat is recovered for got water, building heat, and A/C via absorption chillers [usually Lithium Bromide units]. A gas turbine system would DEFINITELY do it. Just need a good supply of fuel. That's usually less of a problem, as long as you can get a pipeline in place. Otherwise, Nuclear.

What the Feds can do is "declare an emergency" to SHUT UP the SUE-ERS and bypass ridiculous state regulations. Those LAST TWO THINGS stop MORE PROJECTS than ANYTHING!!! And, if it's on Federal land, even easier!

Re: grid capacity constraints could hamstring AI advancement, which would be just awful

include a power plant on the campus, problem solved!!! Just make sure pipelines and roads are adequate for fueling it.

Microsoft's next Windows 11 update is more 'enablement' than upgrade

Re: Forced into it on work laptop

the other day (for various reasons) I created a universal Linux boot via USB [512G USB stick - damn!] that should work on any am d-64 compatible computer running 11 in which you can enable non-UEFI bootup via USB. Needed it for a demo and to clone the failing HD of a win7 box.

Was not hard. Used VirtualBox. You can assign a VBox virtual hard drive to point to a specific (unmounted) hard drive as long as you chmod it to 0666 first. THEN install Linux normally [I used latest Devuan with Mate desktop]. The [company owned] machine is for a particular device I'm working on but control SW needs to be either windows or Linux and the box is one o' those touchscreen "all embedded" things on a stand. So no hard drive swap-out.

AMI BIOS, had to press 'Del' a few times, then alter boot sequence. Still won't default to USB boot first, have to press F11...

Anyway - maybe a similar thing. SanDisk USB stick-drive was cheaper than expected. Could run wine on it. Just needs wifi drivers... (available, had not installed yet)

Re: We're going to install more spyware & bloat

Makes me wonder whether it is ENABLEMENT or ENFEEBLEMENT...

French city of Lyon ditching Microsoft for open source office and collab tools

Re: I can understand the wish, but...

yeah they kinda blew it, didn't they?