Posts by bombastic bob 10819 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015
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).
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...
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".
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.
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!
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.
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)
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?
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.
no, it appears GDPR wasn't being followed. And it also seems that following GDPR would have been pretty simple.
They *kind of* say that they target-ad you by showing products "related to your search" or "related to your purchase history". But it should be a bit more up front and blatant.
The REAL harm I regularly see in image cropping is done by humans THEMSELVES when people hold their stupid phone cameras in super-skinny portrait mode and take photos or videos "that way" and expect ANYONE ELSE that is NOT a "4 incher" (someone that views the universe through a 4-inch screen) to actually be able to VIEW it without having to somehow rotate it 90 degrees to keep the brain from exploding trying to decipher the images on it without CLOSING ONE EYE first, because our eyes are SIDE BY SIDE and NOT VERTICAL.
>2:1 portrait mode REALLY STINKS. It's so BAD that when the news media needs to show these poorly oriented videos on a TV screen, they put fuzzy copies of it along the sides to make it closer to a square shape (they know it's bad, so they do what they can). Yet it still appears as if you are looking through an old-style keyhole (or a gap in a door jam) with both eyes open.
Maybe the REAL algorithmic flaw is from a lack of artistic ability or aesthetics when it comes to photography in general, from such cluelessness being embedded within the AI design, and you get what you get.
as a hobbyist who is retired I did not need to account for my time - however done commercially the wages cost would have far outweighed the cost of a new PSU and dimmer switch.
this is probably true in most cases nowadays. cost of replacement is considerably less than cost of repair. "I have a bad DVD drive" - do you replace or repair it? "The thing that is expensive" would get the repair. The cheaper things (or modules) get replaced.
But at some point "the module" becomes "the item that gets repaired". And in the case of iThings, they seem to be ironically expensive AND disposable...
I'm NO fan of government overLORDing. Oversight, sure. "Light touch" when needed. "Right to repair", sure. "Make it more expensive because we say so", not so much. And ALSO mentioned somewhat positively in the article, "YOU CANNOT OWN THAT BECAUSE 'WE FEEL' YOU DO NOT NEED IT" heavy-handed OVERLORDING: *NEVER* !!!
with an axe
reminds me of the origin of the acronym 'SCRAM' which stood for "Safety Control Rod Axe Man". As the very first breeder reactor went online to produce Pu-239 for the US Atomic Bomb program during WW2, a man stood next to the rope that held up the control rod, ready to chop it with an axe should something go very, very wrong. He was the "Safety Control Rod Axe Man".
The term 'SCRAM' stuck for an emergency/rapid shutdown of a nuclear reactor.
On a related note, these things docking with the ISS may need to have a "Big Red Button" to cut off ALL "whatever" if an emergency were to happen with a docked module. This could include ejecting it from the dock among other things, as well as shutting down all maneuvering engines and electrical power, or some partial combination thereof.
I also don't know if Cargo Dragon can carry and transfer Russian fuel
thrusters often use hydrazine, which acts like a liquid explosive under the right conditions.
One resource that flashed by in a search said there aren't any thrusters on the US side of the ISS and that they're on the Russia side. So if that is the case, fuel is probably compatible.
with the caveat that when Stuff Happens, usually it's only people who were really closely involved who know all the facts
Back in the 80's I was a Navy nuclear reactor operator. The 3 Mile Island incident report was required reading. Details were in the report NOT in the public sphere of info, of course, which may or may not have been classified. However, it painted a different picture since the design of the control room clearly played a significant part, and not just "operator incompetence".
I also read the classified version of the SL-1 accident. Classified details in that report shed a lot of light onto the actual cause. I had read the unclassified version years before in college. Conclusions between the reports are likely to differ by quite a LOT, in particular any blame and/or corrective actions to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. (and there may still be reasons to keep the classified version classified, so use FOIA if you wanna see it, you might get lucky)
Anyway if those involved did their jobs, the details will be in the classified version of the report. What the public sees may be heavily redacted, or simply have missing details. Amazingly NASA still has (need for?) classified info. No surprise, really.
hindsight: once docked to the station, all vehicles and modules need a 100% way of disabling their thrusters to avoid this kind of thing in the future. De-fueling would be one way. If it needs to move, re-fuel it using station supplies after verifying that you have positive navi-guess-ion control.
and no possibility fixing this problem with duck tape or a DAP-like caulking compound like the last one ("There's a hole in the hull of the Soyuz. There's a hole in the hull of the Soyuz. There's a hole, there's a hole (etc.)")
Someone needs to seriously re-think QA at the payload spacecraft manufacturing facility in Russia...
If not already done, I suggest learning C programming _and_ mastering the language.
Knowing Linux also helps.
Web development is, in my opinion, the "entry level" of software development. Nice stepping stone to a better career, But if you STAY there, you're gonna be stuck in a quagmire.
But if you're good at screens, the 'droid dev kit is free. And it uses Java (don't bother with Kotlin)
labour market fixing
I believe there was actual collusion in Silly Valley a few years ago, "non-recruiting" agreements between several large corporations. As I recall, it was uncovered and rectified in some kind or lawsuit and federal investigation...
there are many other fingers in many other pies on this topic. It's like several hornets' nests glued together with africanized honeybee combs with ready-to-hatch baby bees in them, floating out in the middle of the La Brea tar pit.
Anthropogenic Climate Change is a reality.
No, it is NOT:
* black body radiation cools the earth by losing energy through IR radiation out into space
* a greenhouse gas prevents that from happening to some extent
* CO2 is *horrible* at absorbing black body radiation corresponding to actual temperatures on earth, and is only 0.04% of the atmosphere (and is at equilibrium).
* Water, on the other hand, is very very GOOD at it, and can be 1% ofr more of the atmosphere, and changes by huge amounts ALL of the time.
* Nobody is trying to control atmospheric water, because it's obvious we can't. So CO2 is blamed, for other-than-scientific reasons, even when water can make 100 times the difference whenever it changes, which it does all of the time.
These are scientific facts and are easily confirmed. I challenge anyone to refute them. Until they are refuted, the science is NOT settled on anthro-climate-change.
we need to get to a point where everything has enforced limits on power consumption.
NO. Why would a FREE person say such a thing? And WHO has the kind of rights / authority to make THAT kind of "one size fits all" determination? You need to think through ALL of the implications before you go off making blanket statements like this. No 2 people's needs are the same, nor are their wants, or their ability to pay for the necessary power consumption.
I hear there's a war on pickup trucks in Canada. Only a CITY DWELLER who does not live 20 miles from the nearest store (or place to dump your trash) would try to ban one of the most USEFUL utility vehicles in the world, particularly for farmers, ranchers, contractors, or anyone living in a rural area.
And that's just ONE example. No doubt, there are MANY. And NOT being able to mail order a high end computer that consumes LOTS of power because that's what the fastest machines do... is ANOTHER.
The last thing ANY of us need is for a nameless activist bureaucrat to determine FOR us what we CAN and CAN NOT HAVE.
building your system from scratch
Exactly. So much for Cali-Forn-You's "RULES" and their "REGULATIONS" and their "UN-FREEDOM". (I'm about ready to LEAVE this state, but if I stick around long enough maybe I can help it return to sanity...)
Gamers are often hardware hackers too. Overclocks, etc.. Right? So a custom system is TOTALLY expected for a hard-core gamer (and NOW a requirement, THANKS Sacramento! What a bunch of MAROONS they are in Sacramento!!!)
all home residents will be able to have the same fixed ip address/addresses from the ISP, additionally, individual devices will not have to be placed behind a NAT.
Right. I've also pointed out before (and was even DOWN voted for doing so - nobody likes the truth I guess) that this (for windows machines, at any rate) is a MAJOR security issue, probably at the core of why "not China" still hesitates to get IPv6 fully supported. The fact that phone networks are generally doing IPv6 suggests that phones (running iOS and Android) are inherenty MORE secure than your average windows machine...
NAT inherently provides the basic firewalling that open (and otherwise exploitable) ports need to have so that your computers and devices are NOT exploited.
China forcing this is (maybe) a good move. But they are a totalitarian dictatorship under Communism. It's like "Comply or Die" and "don't you DARE complain!". In the FREE world, people need to WANT it.
correct - unless you use a tunnel (where the tunnel provider does the routing), the IPv6 would be a function of the ISP that assigns it, just as it is with IPv4. But you'd have a fixed IPv6 so that automatic assignment (based on things like randomness and your network adapter's MAC address) could sort of randomize the actual IPv6 if you really want it to do that. But most likely it'd be assigned by DHCPv6 or whatever that intrinsic method is that I cant remember (but my network supports). What's funny is that apple devices support one of those methods, and Android the other. SO to support both you need your network to support "whatever other method it is" as well as DHCPv6. Then there's the auto-generated address using the MAC and random numbers, as I recall. But it's in the same subnet so there ya go. Yeah it can be a little confusing until you have toyed with it for a while.
Because people are generally resistant to change.
particularly when:
* the change is NOT an improvement
* the change requires a learning curve
* the change breaks something I like
* the change was IMPOSED and was not an option nor a new feature that I had to "buy a new one" to get because I wanted it
You have to look at the nature of UI changes since the mid 2000's, beginning with Vista, "The Ribbon", Gnome 3, Australis, "The Chrome Look", Windows 8, Windows 10, yotta yotta.
It's NOT for the better... [when 7 and 8 machines were next to each other on the shelves, the 7 machines sold out while the 8.x machines collected dust, all other things pretty much equal. I don't recall which 'El Reg' article pointed it out, but I definitely remember it, and it was so long ago it's become hard to find, and I looked recently even with no success...]
And *YES*, I *DO* resist change, when it is WRONG TO CHANGE!!!
Changes in Windows that I liked:
* Win 3.0 3D Skeuomorphic look
* Visual C++ vs earlier (MS C/C++ with CodeView in text mode with dual monitors)
* Windows '95 [hybrid 32-bit and multi-thread]
* Windows NT 4.0 [even better]
* Win 2k and XP [which could revert to the 2k style start menu]
after that, not so much. 7 was welcome because it was "Not Vista" but I *STILL* like 2k and XP better!!!
Can't ANYONE JUST ADMIT that THE CHANGES AFTER 7 (and for Vista) SIMPLY *SUCKED* FOR THE CONSUMER???
I have spent hours working to retrain myself to use the search function.
search would be more useful if it DID! NOT! HIT! THE! INTERNET! first, or second even.
(has this been fixed yet? no need to track me via a search engine, after all... I've simply been NOT using it, Cortana or otherwise, even back in 7 or XP when it was more sane and did not hit teh intarwebz)
As for the 'new thingy' feature, I use it for directories ('Folders' for you young-uns) and (as mentioned) that all too useful "text documnt" for which I can provide a file extension [last I tried it]. Not very often, though, just sometimes when it's convenient. And I think you can do it inside of a ZIP archive.
'new shortcut' on the desktop, also very useful.
back in the day, one guy I knew would create nearly everything on the desktop like this, then move it where he wanted it afterwards.
I think I get what your real point is... "Perceived bullying" when it may actually NOT be happening.
Some people _DO_ seem to go about their lives waiting to be offended. At least, that's my perception and I suppose *I* could admit waiting for someone who seems to go about etc. etc. you all get the point right?
So it might be interesting to know what "experienced bullying" (in the survey) actually means, and not some vague description that's likely to cause emotional overreaction [i.e. polling to deliberately create an outcome to advance an agenda - yeah THAT never happens].
Think of it this way: was the SLOWPOKE who kept you from being ale to pass him on the highway this morning a BULLY and DOING IT ON PURPOSE? Or was it just some discourteous smug ass hat going about his self-centered existence? Or was it just someone who was clueless?
"Bullying" by many definitions exists throughout society, from subtle to overt. To fix it, let's start by ELIMINATING CANCEL CULTURE (number one on my pareto chart).
(and THEN be aware that accusations of bullying may actually be misunderstanding and need no further attention)
Still, if the hiring and recommendations DO have prejudice and discrimination inherent within them, THAT needs fixing as well. Sex, race, personal preferences, after-work behaviors, religion, politics, age, general appearance, and other "non-work-performance" issues shouldn't matter. EVAR..
> But let's not replace Linux on our desktops, oh no.
too late (by about 17 years or so)
(even if my 'Linux' is actually FreeBSD)
I actually think it might be time for Micros~1 to start open sourcing a lot of its stuff, to be peer reviewed and rapidly patched by the community at large.
(and maybe we'd get security fixes for XP and 7 to go with it, via pull request)
HR departments are one of the reasons I'm a contractor rather than an employee.
I agree with your assessment. also a contractor
H.R. doesn't have to make a profit within their department. Their motivations are COMPLETELY "Bass Ackwards". Even I.T. has to JUSTIFY it's expenses and head counts... and show how it is at least SAVING MONEY for the company in order to exist at all. But _NOT_ H.R.. They are like BUREAUCRATS working for a government agency in that regard...
(and I would expect more 'woke' and 'cancel culture' from within their ranks)
bypassing H.R. in hiring and job seeking is a good idea whenever possible.
As for whether it was Google's HR department that flagged this guy for termination, I wouldn't think his manager did it, nor his manager's manager. I bet they're too busy trying to keep their jobs, being faced with "bottom lines" and "deadlines" and "performance" and other more important "company profitability" things.
(I guess if he is a VP then it's the CEO, President and Board of Directors. Similarly them)
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