* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Debian 11 formally debuts and hits the Bullseye

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Strength & Weakness

I haven't seen a "Big Ender" build of any OS for quite a while. Used to be thought that Big Endian would run faster on certain hardware and be advantageous for networking. I'm pretty sure ARM can still do it or maybe that was just ARM32. But if it doesn't matter for performance, might as well keep it the same, yeah. Still might be a fun comparison test. Every time you need to flip byte order (htons, ntohs) it adds to the execution time and footprint. On "Big Ender" systems, for these kinds of function calls the compiler doesn't need to generate any code.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

sysvinit has been outdated for some time

'outdated' - I do not think that word means what you think it means...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

I ran into this very problem when making it possible for an RPi (using Raspbian which is based on Debian and has systemd) to act in several wireless modes including AP and Wifi Client, and during startup you have to tweek things LIKE resolv.conf - I think the utility might have been 'resolved'. It's unnecessarily confusing, though (typical of things related to systemd).

The fact that you can still work around systemd to make something cool happen is pretty good. I just hope that the remnants of more 'traditional' network setup do not disappear. Assuming that the future direction will be MORE choice for init systems, it's looking ok.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

from the article: Support for init systems other than systemd

so the DEFAULT is to use systemd, but apparently easier to switch it out for something SANE.

(I was somewhat impressed by this in any case, a happy surprise)

Still using Devuan, which is based on Debian, but I'd think that Devuan maintainer's job just became easier.

You could kinda say that default Debian comes with GNOME, just like it comes with systemde, and forget that there's a Mate and LXDE (and others) desktop setups available, too.

Tired: What3Words. Wired: A clone location-tracking service based on FOUR words – and they are all extremely rude

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: WHat Three Words - commercial algorithim that cant be shared without license payment

A "tourette" version. heh.

In some places, making a parody version of "What3Words" might be considered "fair use".

Microsoft emits last preview of .NET 6 and C# 10, but is C# becoming as complex as C++?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Cross-platform UI?

a generic WebKit-based cross-platform frame for HTML-based 'apps' might actually help...

(I've been kicking this idea around, and it could be written in Python if you don't need real features)

#!/usr/bin/python

import sys

import gtk

import webkit

import gobject

gobject.threads_init()

window = gtk.Window()

window.set_default_size(800, 480)

window.fullscreen()

window.connect("destroy", lambda a: gtk.main_quit())

browser = webkit.WebView()

if len(sys.argv) > 1 : browser.open(sys.argv[1])

else : browser.open("http://theregister.co.uk/")

window.add(browser)

window.show_all()

gtk.main()

and then, you wouldn't need complicated installers, monolithic run-times, etc. [other than webkit and python and the other supporting packages that could be loaded with something like pip if you use pythyon. otherwise, an open source C/C++ program compiled for your OS]

eh, but what do I know...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

C# came from a late-1990s project within microsoft called COOL (C-like Object-Oriented Language)

I was thinking more like a place, with lots of flames, pitchforks, and tormented people screaming...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: native targets

And both are designed with adding new CPUs in mind.

Yes. I have actually DONE it. xmega32e5 is one of them. The gnu tools people are really happy when you give them a quality set of patches for new CPUs. I haven't done LLVM yet but might need to some day, and the same for gcc, if I stay cutting edge with microcontrollers.

You know, it might be REALLY COOL if Micros~1 were to make their windows build tools compatible with either LLVM _or_ GCC (including MAKE FILES), or maybe BOTH, and then simply made headers and "binutils" tools and 'import' libs available, and THEN switch their build environments to use THEM instead. The LLVM and gcc compilers and binutils very well may have advanced better than Micros~1's compilers and tools, and could be more widely accepted given the additional CPU support.

They could also submit patches for 'ld' to do Micros~1 stuff, like debug info, resources, manifests, DLL support, whatever. "Developers Developers Developers Developers".

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

In my old age, I really do prefer C

In My Bombastic Opinion, good C++ code looks a LOT like good C code.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: "the ability to use operators on generic types."

IMO generic types are the bane of proper programming.

C++ recently added 'auto' for this purpose, primarily for use in templates.

However, outside of a template, explicit typing should be used for a number of reasons, not the least of which is knowing for sure what code will be run given a particular data type.

If you don't know what you're working with, how can you possibly write the proper code to deal with it ?

yeah, what YOU said.

Beige Against the Machine: The IBM PC turns 40

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Forty years ago

yeah normally I would be using debug prints if no symbolic debugger is available. That's an old school method that still works very well for kernel and microcontroller debugging where you often can't put soft debug breaks into the running code...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

5150

wasn't there a Van Halen album titled '5150' ? (1986 'Van Hagar'). By then the IBM PC had been around for a while...

(5150 can also be a police code for a crazy person, possibly a reference to California Code 5150 for committing said person to an asylum)

COVID-19 cases surge as do sales of fake vaccination cards – around $100 for something you could get free

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: Forgery

In the USA, "showing your papers" like it's to a KGB or other "secret police" operative is, in my opinion, UN-AMERICAN.

And my private medical history is NOBODY! ELSE'S! BUSINESS!!

Whether or not I've had the disease, a vaccine, multiple vaccines, or not, THOSE decisions are supposed to be between me and whatever physician I choose. "My Body My Choice" right?

Might as well stamp 666 on my hand or forehead. No, wait...

Other countries can do what they want. But in the USA I'd like to think that we still have CIVIL RIGHTS. And I see any attempt at a "vax passport" as VIOLATING them (regardless of whether or not I've been VAX'd or already have natural immunity).

Thunderbird 91 lands: Now native on Apple Silicon, swaps 'master' for 'primary' password, and more

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: More like Chunderbird, amirite?

it feels like it's stuck in the 90s

Well, other than using the 'f' word FEEL, I would want MORE things to be "stuck in the 90's" if it means

* 3D Skeuomorphic menu-based multi-pane interface WITH NO 'HAMBURGER' MENU

* Keyboard+Mouse UI centricity unless you WANT it the other way for some reason...

* sensible menu hierarchy

* tabs where it makes sense

* extensibility

* can turn OFF HTML MAIL (which is EVIL and a YUGE SECURITY CRATER)

</rant>

India's return to space fails after first locally built cryogenic engine experiences 'anomaly'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: getting LOX + anything to light up takes SOME doing

LOX plus most things will burn if ignited, yeah. LOX plus SOME things explodes into flame immediately. But most simple chemical mixing won't burn without help.

LOX + Kerosene or LOX + Liquid Hydrogen probably needs to be ignited properly, especially at cryogenic temperatures. BUT... if you pump in hydrazine FIRST, it would act like a primer charge, and then you shift the fuel over to the main one once the fire is properly burning. Other chemicals may work better or be more reliable. Same concept.

I understand that some jet engines require a starting sequence where something "not jet fuel" is used to light them... propane or similar in at least one case. Once lit, you shift the fuel over and it stays lit. That kind of thing. A Rocket could need that sort of thing to light the engines.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: apparently needed more on the ground testing before putting an expensive payload on it

true, but if this 2nd stage has never flown before, why risk a perfectly good satellite in the process??

(some bean-counter probably *FELT* it was a good idea, yeah...)

then I'll stand corrected in saying that you ALSO need to do some flight testing before putting payloads on it. But I thought that was obvious and didn't mention it. If I had, I'd be too wordy and accused of being Captain Obvious. No way to win.

But proper ground testing would take most of those other things into consideration you know. Vibrations and resonances can be simulated. The thing is, they never said exactly why the thing did not start. It could be everything from bad wiring to bad controllers to turbo pumps not starting on time, or lighting the fire on the main engine just didn't work.

Apollo's 3rd stage not only had to start, it had to be re-startable. Similarly for the command module. THAT kind of tech is what I'm thinking about here. (and that WOULD be rocket science). By now the patents have run out. I'm sure they can be researched.

(and they SHOULD be able to test for nearly all of that on the ground)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

apparently needed more on the ground testing before putting an expensive payload on it

just saying, if you want the thing to light, you need to make sure it'll work with sufficient on the ground testing. it's the kind of thing NASA has done a LOT, after all. Granted, getting LOX + anything to light up takes SOME doing, especially if the engine is designed to be re-started in space.

But i expect it COULD have been tested on the ground, first. Tested ENOUGH TIMES to be signed off as "reliable" at any rate.

Confidence in this new engine is a *bit* lacking.

(and they didn't give any details as to why, either - pumps failed? No arkie sparkie? Not enough accelerant if THAT was used? Or maybe they just do not know???)

It's time to decentralize the internet, again: What was distributed is now centralized by Google, Facebook, etc

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Bullshit article premise

These are just large sites. They're not the internet, and the internet is not "centralized" around them.

* Google services are often integrated into a A LOT of web sites, from gummint sites using ReCAPTCHA, to 'analytics' and "log in with your google ID" that I see way too often, everywhere.

* Amazon AWS is used by many for web stuff, and Amazon marketplace includes many businesses I often deal with directly.

* Fa[e]ceB[an,ook], unfortunately, has a HUGE PILE of users worldwide, and these people actually use FB for NEWS and other information. It means their censors can screen out what they do not like and do not want their users to see. And too many business managers/owners think that using their services helps them.

* Google search prioritizes things in sometimes GROSSLY UNFAIR ways. Use a different search to see what they had [allegedly] been doing to breitbart.com for example...

* GDPR and all of the excuses why these companies can not apparently comply with it.

When you look at the overall market share, and observe that the companies who have it are not only in a posiition to censor and filter and cancel, they are apparently DOING THAT VERY THING, and many of us regular people have been complaining about it, LOUDLY, and then nothing gets done about it. We are at their mercy. And they are AWARE of it.

From the article: central platforms can suddenly change policies to shift users away from the content being provided by a creator

This is another way of saying 'Cancel Culture'

Firefox 91 introduces cookie clearing, clutter-free printing, Microsoft single sign-on... so where are all the users?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Bold move

I'd rather they just put the UI back to what it was *BEFORE* *AUSTRALIS*

That would be BOLD *AND* SMART!!!

(But I guess they don't wanna disappoint the 2D FLATTY FAN zoomer kids that would be screaming about it on tw[a,i]tter like they're a big majority of people but are really only 11 or so very loud cyber bullies...)

and maybe THAT is why REAL USAGE does not match the predictive model quite so much.

The web was done right the first time. An ancient 3D banana shows Microsoft does a lot right, too

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Would need a 32-bit Windows?

to some extent this is true. On FreeBSD and Linux I have no trouble running DOSBox, or virtualbox with 16-bit, 32-bit, or 64-bit versions of windows, using the kvm. The thing is, it's apparently possible (with amd64 architecture) to run in a 32-bit context alongside of 64-bit context. Windows apparently does NOT even attempt this. But I think virtualbox's kernel drivers DO manage to make this work. Also Micros~1 "Virtual PC" seems to do it ok. Not sure if you can still get that, though...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Would need a 32-bit Windows?

on the 64-bit systems you can use an emulator that boots a 32-bit version of windows, THEN run the 16-bit code. That's pretty much the only option for 16-bit binaries though.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Would need a 32-bit Windows?

I leveraged Win32s for single-threaded 32-bit executables, and wrote hybrid 32-bit/16-bit code that accessed flat memory (Global memory handles pointed to contiguous memory blocks making this possible). Some of my 16-bit hybrid code FLEW by writing sorts and memcpy utilities that used the 32-bit code for some things. You did not need to use Win32s for USE32 ASM code though, as it was still 16-bit with USE32 prefixes.

but people forget the performance problem that segments had under protected mode - 16 cycles to load a new selector. Ew.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: old sites

they load in 2 seconds without 200 javascript libraries

I try to do this with my own stuff

* use <style> section and embedded 'style=' rather than gargantuan style sheets

* minimal script (if any at all) and always SELF CONTAINED

* tables for overall formatting.

it's simple, easily maintained, and self-contained. It loads fast, displays consistently, and doesn't break when some idiot decides to "withdraw" his contributions.

Yeah but when things make too much sense, they get overwhelming disapproval... I wonder why that is? Maybe the same reasons why some contractors seem to ensure job security through obfuscation, or lock their clients into solutions only THEY can maintain, etc. etc.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

maybe that old sottware was just written PROPERLY. My guess, they statically linked things like C runtime. heh.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Maybe Windows 3.1 was a sweet spot?

windows 3.1 had a lot of good going for it

* same UI as its predecessor (which sold zillions of copies)

* fixed the big bugs and included things like 'toolhelp' and common dialogs to help development do better

* a general focus on benefits to customers and developers (still trying to sell it)

* lean and mean where it made sense (it had to run on 16Mhz 386SX with 4Mb of RAM)

Too bad Micros~1 has seemed to forget lessons well learned back then. I was at the PDC where the 3.1 beta was announced, too (in Seattle as I recall). The '95 beta (Chicago) conference was in Anaheim (Gates actually rented DIsneyland for a night and Penn & Teller did a magic show on another night).

Yeah, those WERE the days... "Developers Developers Developers Developers"

New GNOME Human Interface Guidelines now official – and obviously some people hate it

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: CUA FTW.

New Geniuses

Back in the 60's we had a (somewhat pejorative) name for them: "Whiz Kids"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: hate it

In Mate, pluma does this too (indicates file name). Firefox also lets me know if I am running it as a different user (I do this a lot for sandboxing). This may be a feature of the desktop, though, to add the text "(as username)" to the title bar text. Still helpful.

Yes, the title bar HAS a use, and it should be LEFT THAT WAY.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Choice, anybody?

your suggestion makes too much sense. Tailoring the application's UI based on display size and (my addition) touch-ness would mean that developers had to actually THINK about the USER (aka 'the customer') instead of "Muh New/Shiny Interface W0W LOL LULZ {emoticons}".

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Who makes this crap up?

why must every call to put things back to SANITY (i.e. before gnome 3, chrome's ridiculous "paradigm", and Australis and "the ribbon") 'need' to be met with an extremist view of what that might be like?

before "the ribbon" you typically had dockable tool bars that you could turn on and off. I usually turned them off and used the appropriate menu (right-click in particular).

maybe it was possible to turn your entire display into a bunch of clickable buttons, but I doubt anyone actually did it.

and a specific preference dialog box that's not hierarchical enough (a tabbed version might be a good start) is a design problem, not one for determining what your OS or desktop or UI standards should be like.

(or were you saying something different?)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Who cares?

Mate and Cinnamon. Yep, same here.

The thing is, the latest GTK can still be used by applications running on Mate, Cinnamon, etc.

From the article: "contemporary design practice."

I have to wonder what they meant by this... are they thinking "new shiny" or "2D FLATSO": or "hamburger menu" or ??? because (to me) THAT would be WRONG THINKING.

And apparently Firefox and Libre Office are sticking with a slightly more traditional look (i.e. no menu in the title bar).

I have considered a COMPLETE rebellion, writing a library that decorates windows to look like XP, and then FORCING IT (for my applications at least) on ALL windows platforms.

(For Linux and BSD, you can just choose the right desktop theme, one that's not 2D FLATSO)

If there's one design practice that MUST be followed, it's USER CHOICE

Wireless powersats promise clean, permanent, abundant energy. Sound familiar?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Lets do the maths

too bad you can't turn "bad weather" into a power source...

A lack of reliable sunlight DOES improve the argument for fission, eventually fusion, hydroelectric, and the more traditional carbon and hydrocarbon generated electricity (and heat for homes). Because giving up winter home heating is unacceptable.

Please, no Moore: 'Law' that defined how chips have been made for decades has run itself into a cul-de-sac

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: About time too

one layer doesn't know what the next is doing

design top-down rather than in a scrum, and maybe the function's I/O description "contract" will handle this by itself...

at the very least a library function should NEVER throw an exception. it should return an error code, and let the caller decide whether to do something different. This is the basis of an important part of the C language, where an error generally does not stop the program (nor throw some kind of exception), but returns an error code.

My C code often has a catch-all at the end of a large function, where you do the cleanup. It often has a label 'error_exit'. You set error codes beforehand [based on where/what the error was], then go to 'error_exit' where it cleans up the resources, then returns whatever the error code was.

(I actually started doing this after seeing Linux kernel code doing similar things)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: About time too

Most of the time, the third party library will be better written than anything you can write yourself.

think of the readership of El Reg. Then say that again, imagining who it is you are saying it to.

why spend all your time re-inventing the wheel

car makers "re-invent the wheel" every year. There's always a better way (though the cost may not be worth doing it - that's to be determined as a part of the process).

you young whippersnappers, when I was your age computers used punch cards and either every bit of debug info was on a printout in binary, or you'd have to be really good at reading das blinkenlights.

nothing builds code analysis skills better than having to repeatedly wait hours for the printout after submitting the stack of cards, and then having to deal with the aftermath.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: About time too

the semi-traditional way of dealing with this in the microcontroller and embedded world appears to be simple: write it in C (or even C++) anyway, then hand-tweek the things that make the biggest difference, like inner loops and ISRs.

it's what _I_ do. Just check the assembly output and then embed tweeked assembler into your C code (as an example)

then you can go ahead and use the cheaper 8-bit CPU instead of an ARM Cortex-M (let's say) for the simpler things, at any rate. Last I checked these 8-bit CPUs are super-cheap in bulk, and come in packages (like TQFP) that are hand-solderable [VERY good for prototypes].

Sometimes, a careful application of hand-tweeked C code, one simple/basic operation per line, can get you almost the same results without any embedded assembly.

So you do something like:

var1 = var2 + 5;

var1 &= 7;

the_array[var1] = something;

and so on. That kind of thing results in some very predictable assembly language sequences. Then you dump out the disassembly after building it to see if it can be tweeked even more, etc. (I have a script that does "objdump -D -t -z -x $@ | less" for that very purpose).

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: About time too

This may have an effect on how software's written, too

not as long as Micros~1 has any say in it

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Transistor physics

quantum state transistors, multiple devices per atom, using large atoms with lots of electron orbital shells. Hmmm... sounds science-fictiony

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Transistor physics

I have to wonder if carbon could be electrostatically deposited onto wafers as a diamond layer...

kinda like a TV picture tube that 'scans' the picture but using carbon atoms instead of electrons. Or an electron microscope that uses carbon atoms instead of electrons. Same basic idea (this is not a new tech, it's decades old).

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Transistor physics

I would say the OS bloat is an unintended consequence of the faster processors...

* refusal to build off of existing (efficient) code rather than re-re-re-inventing the language and the run-time libraries it uses (i.e. .NET vs Win32, MFC becoming exceedingly bloated, C-pound using P-code rather than native code, Javascript being at the core of major applications, etc. and don't even get me started on that UWP crap)

* a "we have faster CPUs now" excuse for adding inefficiencies so that coders no longer have to think about efficiency - just go ahead and write crap-code like there's no tomorrow

* a focus on monolithic "objects" that do every possible thing, WAY too often unnecessarily, in lieu of efficient "unix principle" thinking in the basic design (example listing files in a directory must take 10 times longer because EVERY! SINGLE! FILE! "needs" a full analysis while adding it to the list, making a 'file open' box take a MINUTE to load 100 file names, because, "object oriented" now)

* a focus on "rapid development" so that bloaty crapware fills the entire userland and makes processors take twice as many cycles to do the same task

* a perception of what is acceptable for performance that never seems to improve (in fact, gets slower with new releases of the OS in spite of hardware improvements)

anyway that's a small list of gripes that has been buiiding in my head since Windows 2003 Server...

Facebook takes bold stance on privacy – of its ads: Independent transparency research blocked

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Brain migration, please

it's not the ads that concern ME. It's the TRACKING and the SELLING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION and TARGETING ADS BASED ON ONLINE BEHAVIOR OUTSIDE OF "FaeceBan" that bothers me...

China tightens distributor cap after local outfits hoard automotive silicon then charge silly prices

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: D'oh!

it might be cheaper and better to do a drop in replacement for the entire motherboard, even if it's ARM-based and running x86 emulation. Or maybe PC-104 which (I think) may still support ISA peripherals

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Oopsie daisy

recently had this problem with a simple IC sold by TI, which has no direct substitutes, but price+features made it an excellent fit for the design. At the time it went into the design it had plenty of worldwide supply. Now it doesn't.

So I re-designed the firmware so it could use another one with the same footprint on the board (but with negative logic) so it could be built without having to spin a new board. Otherwise, the ONE supplier (in Hong Kong) wanted $23 EACH for something that normally costs less than 1/100th of that... and lead times for normal distribution channels are well out into 2022.

(yes - fixed it in firmware - works great now, using new design in system testing)

Next time I do a design (even the simple ones like that) the parts will have MANY possible substitutes, and not just be cheap and available at the time. Some things like CPUs and FTDI USB aren't possible to do that with, but those aren't the problem. It's that ten cent part that's readily available from a major manufacturer who happens to have their foundry behind the "Great Wall" and suddenly this popular component is short for the next YEAR.

I suggested to 'the boss' that this distribution company (that was gouging prices) purchase some ketchup to go with their "chips".

Don't rush to adopt QUIC – it's a slog to make it faster than TCP

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Patience, my dear

back in the late 2000's I was involved in coming up with a UDP method of getting perfect streaming video from existing RTP server setups. There were a few hurdles but in general we had it working at least enough to impress TV network providers. Ultimately they picked a TCP based solution that had hardware extensions to increase reliability through buffering, etc. (the opposite approach).

My solution was better: like a wifi connection, or a zmodem transfer, it simply detected the missing packets and asked for them to be re-sent, re-assembling things that were out of order back into the correct order up to a maximum time window (beyond which you would get video skippage, not just noise).

Seriously I have to wonder if QUIC manages a constant uninterrupted stream with occasional "send it again" requests (in which you re-assemble things into the correct order without holding up the stream).

yeah maybe they ARE doing things in that semi-obvious fashion, and as I'd just heard of this QUIC protocol I haven't had time to look at it.

International Space Station actually spun one-and-a-half times by errant Russian module's thrusters

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

Re: You missed a tagline there

and now I can't get that song out of my head, nor the un-brain-bleachable image of that old shock site that used that song...

Stack Overflow survey: Microsoft IDEs dominate, GCP and Azure battle behind AWS

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Stackoverflow search

I agree about using DuckDuckGo for searching. I don't like having to either allow google's cookies to exist, or having to solve a captcha just to use it.

From the article: it primarily represents the users of StackOverflow

Yeah I never heard about the survey. Otherwise I probably would've participated. Chalk one up for C, pluma, FreeBSD, PHP, PostgreSQL, and NO additional "web frameworks", evar!

Tesla battery fire finally flamed out after four-day conflagration

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Extinguishers...

using of LOTS of water makes sense. Though water + Lithium = hydrogen gas, the Lithium forms LiOH which would be chemically inert. So flooding the batteries with water would definitely put out the fire. But you'd still see a lot of chemical reactions while trying to put it out.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Extinguishers...

The fire triangle has 3 legs: heat, fuel, oxidizer

you break one of them to put it out. Liquid N2 would probably help a LOT in that regard.

Another thing you could use is a dry chemical that interrupts the ionic exchange at the boundary of the flame, such as PKP which is supposed to work on class D fires (like ordinance and pyrotechnics). I believe that halon can ALSO help in this way.

So maybe what is needed is an easily ionized gas that literally steals the fire and cools the fuel. This would be a good product as these surge-handling batteries become more popular.

As I recall, LiIon and LiPo usually catch fire because they were discharged too much, though charging them too fast can also cause this. It puts them in an unstable state when over-discharged. They'll 'pillow' as chemicals break down, forming (I think) hydrogen gas, or something equally bad at any rate. And of course they're made from one of the MOST reactive chemicals in the universe.

(Maybe it would be a better idea to use a safer aluminum-based battery for this kind of high power capacity application)

Microsoft's Cloud PCs debut – priced between $20 and $158 a month

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: MS Don't Want To Maintain An OS

created a viable migration path to alternative desktop platforms (yeah, BSD, Linux & Mac).

that may be true, but if Micros~1 were serious about "migrating us" they'd offer versions of ALL of their products that are 100% compatible with these other platforms, which actually would NOT be bad as every OTHER software vendor would jump on that bandwagon as well.

Or, they'd try to take over the Wayland project and cram THAT down our throats. Ooops, too late?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: This is just the opening salvo

that's a LOT of nickels and dimes

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: the Cloud PC resumed in precisely the state we left it

I can pause a VirtualBox VM, save the state, and resume it later. Same effect.

That's probably what Micros~1 is doing inside the black box, simply running a similar kind of VM with an RDP interface... and assuming I have enough RAM, I can do the same thing on my LAN. Wheee.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: New Idea! Network Computer!

this periodic "circle back" to the big iron light client model is dizzying...