Posts by bombastic bob

JavaScript developers left in the dark after DroidScript software shut down by Google over ad fraud allegations

sadly, you may be too accurate with your snark...

(Micros~1 used to clone ideas and bundle them with DOS/Windows. Stacker sued and won, though...)

for the few things I've written, I just make a downloadable APK available.

CIRCUMVENT *THEM* !!!

(too bad you can't [easily] do this with Apple)

Report: World's population of developers expands, JavaScript reigns, C# overtakes PHP

Re: Doom

I think their results need to be re-considered, especially when compared with The TIOBE Index

C: 14.32%

Java: 11.23%

Python: 11.03%

C++: 7.14%

C-pound: 4.91%

VB: 4.55%

JavaScript: 2.44%

This is a LOT closer to what my own observations have been, anecdotally at least. JS and C-pound are just NOT all that popular...

Python doing amazingly well, though. Still, if you want to advertise your skills, and spend time improving them, focusing on C, C++, and Java seem to be your best bets. In My Bombastic Opinion, anyway.

[having a zillion "how do I" posts on stack overflow does NOT a popular lingo make!]

China’s highest-ranked university creates school dedicated to integrated circuits

But.. but... how does that affect your SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE?

Xi Jinping, from the article: Chinese education is capable of nurturing maestros

OK he wants to focus on STEM [specifically IC making], and that's a good thing. But what will the 'cost' be to the students to GET that education?

In a nation that has a concept of "social credit" determined by how good of a CCP member you are, I fear the level of INDOCTRINATION that would go hand-in-hand with the education. "The Price" for getting educated MAY be 'getting indoctrinated'. And would social credit determine who GETS A CHANCE at it?

And it has been my observation, or at least In My Bombastic Opinion, that an oppressive society with secret police, heavy censorship, and that "social credit score" (that makes my navel pucker up and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up like a cat 'petted backwards') isn't going to innovate so well.

It is hard to think up new ways of doing things when the nail that sticks up gets "the hammer". Or worse, "gets disappeared". [if these threats are not real, they are apparently perceived by the people who live under the thumb of the CCP]

(This of course is conjecture and interpretation on my part, but the CONCEPT of 'social credit score' seems consistent with this, at least to me)

University duo thought it would be cool to sneak bad code into Linux as an experiment. Of course, it absolutely backfired

Re: Place your bets...

I want to avoid using the names of the participants to draw any such conclusions (i.e. that the CCP was behind the research); however, open source projects and Linux itself have MANY potential "enemies", i.e. people with something to lose when it is successful, and so do the people and governments that make use of Linux (and open source software) in one form or another. including what is probably more than HALF of cell phone users.

Now that this "experiment" has happened, and it has NECESSARILY BACKFIRED, eyes are open and precautions WILL be taken.

I just hope that it does NOT make free (as in freedom) software LESS FREE in the process.

Sure, your app is crap, but Windows won't tell. Promise

Re: The billboard is performing to spec...

I look at this as a consulting opportunity for a dev that's gutsy enough to propose swapping the sign's OS over to Linux (or some kind of RTOS) instead of Windows.

The people over at Wind River (VxWorks) should DEFINITELY weigh in on this one...

What next for Visual Studio? Microsoft's monster IDE can't please everyone and 64-bit will not solve legacy problems

I just want something that's easy to use, does NOT look "all 2D FLATTY FLATSO", doesn't require excessive "mousie clickie" operations that mean removing my fingers from home row a BOZILLIAN TIMES to get ANYTHING done, and so on.

I also don't want something written in JAVA SCRIPT. Kludgy bad performance and bloatware NodeJS to run it... ew. Just because "you can do it in javaScript" does NOT mean you should actually TRY it. I could write it in BF myself, given enough time. I doubt that would be easy to maintain [but if written by ME, it would be efficient and functional].

I really liked DevStudio 97. I had to run it for a long time to maintain a 16-bit application written in the 90's. The dialog editor was SO MUCH BETTER than ANYTHING that I've seen since then, especially because THE HOT KEYS WERE EASY TO USE. Translation: you could keep your fingers on the keyboard THE ENTIRE TIME you edited a dialog box, even when moving controls around - that's right, you could use the tab and arrow keys to do that.

Mousie/Clickie is ALSO imprecise. Too easy to be "off by one pixel" or struggle with the size grabber or the move grabber. PRODUCTIVITY DEMANDS THE WAY IT USED TO BE!!!

So while Micros~1 is off doing their own thing with "new shiny and now, 64 bit!", the basic "usability" features of the IDE (probably) still stink. It's a fair bet, yeah.

And I do _NOT_ want "crazy new flavor of the week" to be the core of any new application I write. How about C++ with MFC for windows applications? And not a BLOATED MFC either, but an MFC that is tight, tiny, and efficient, and does NOT require hauling shared components around to use it.

(I normallty static link which fixes some of this, but MFC used to compile to EXEs that were about 120kb in size, not 500kb or larger, with NO clear benefit to the extra bloat. Bandwidth costs money, you know)

The thing is, you've got the OLDER VERSION, which was simpler and PROBABLY more efficient on CPU and resources. A typist could keep his fingers on the keyboard the ENTIRE TIME. THAT is PRODUCTIVITY. And it had the much nicer 3D Skeuomorphic look to it. And it used simple "Makefile" builds at the core (ok using nmake but still).

SO, HOW ABOUT THE SAME *KIND* OF THING FOR LINUX ??? I'd _LOVE_ to have Visual Studio '97 for Linux, especially if it integrated with the autotools AND github support.

But no bloat, please.

Won't somebody please think of the children!!! UK to mount fresh assault on end-to-end encryption in Facebook

Re: Child protection

there's an icon for that...

"Think of the CHILDREN..." <-- to the tune of 'Hearts and Flowers' I guess

On a dusty red planet almost 290 million km away... NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flies

Re: Pretty sure Linux in space isn't new...

it's a fair bet you'll find a great deal of software written for RPis (and other things Linux-powered) that are well tested and come in handy for making the drone copter work.

I have sometimes considered whether a home-built hybrid rocket capable of leaving earth's gravity could use Celestia as a basis for its navigation system... [not like I could really build that but still, how WOULD you navigate up there?]. If nothing else, Celestia could make a good basis for a flight simulator to train astro-pilots.

In any case, might as well just say it: TUX! IN! SPAAaaaace!!!

How not to apply for a new job: Apply for it on a job site

Re: Have A Pint As I can Only Upvote You Once

agreed

are the job sites "taking over" like "big tech" ? I've had similar experiences looking for new contract gigs.

The book "What Color is your Parachute?" [it's about the job hunting process] suggested (a while back) that you do a bit of research and at least find the hiring manager's name, THEN send your resume and a tailored cover letter to him DIRECTLY.

But I think the "Job Site" circle jerk described in the article is an attempt to somehow prevent us from doing the thing that is most likely to get an interview, and INSTEAD justify the existence of a bunch of HR [censored term].

We normally want to:

* Bypass HR

* Communicate with the hiring manager ASAP

* Cut down on B.S. (from THEIR perspective) by quickly presenting yourself in a way that impresses that particular manager.

Instead, you're reduced to:

* HR friendly boiler plates

* HR friendly "your education goes first" resumes (as if pedigrees make you a better employee)

* Focus on HR "requirements" instead of "being someone who gets the job done" [which is what the HIRING MANAGER wants]

* Being circle-jerked around to enter your e-mail address (and phone number) to as MANY lists as possible

This is frustrating for both the HIRING MANAGER _AND_ YOU.

So Thanks, Dabbsy, good article!

Ever wondered what it's like working for Microsoft? Leaked survey shines a light on how those at the code coalface feel

Re: what was NOT said

I wouldn''t hate "them" per se.

Working at Micros~1 would be fun _IF_ I had the authority to put things _LIKE_ 3D Skeuomorphic [as an option. NOT forcing it] back in, or to make all of the spying and ads "opt in", or to ensure that proper testing was done before updates were sent out on patch Tuesday. But I'd have ethical issues if they wanted me to do MORE things like the spying and ads and 2D FLATTY or (worse) to tighten things up so that they can NEVER be bypassed, even with 3rd party add-ons.

Re: what was NOT said

The problem isn't talking about politics at work, or (worse) being irritating about it [work is for working].

The problem is whether a company you work for scans your social media or other online information (web sites, USENET posts, IRC channels, lists of political contributors, whatever), and based on what you say or do "NOT at work", THEN decide to terminate you or simply NOT hire you in the FIRST place, NOT because of what you do at work, but because of WHO you are, or what you think, or the political things you contribute money to.

I think everyone pretty much understands what the term "work safe" means.

I also draw attention to what happened to the former CTO and later CEO of Mozilla Brendan Eich...

(As I recall, some journalist merely saw his name in a publicly viewable list of political contributors and then all hell broke loose)

And what happened to Brendan Eich is more in line to the *kind* of thing I am referring to.

the question, then, is whether or not Micros~1 looks at "your life outside the company" to filter out new hires... or determine who gets laid off.

what was NOT said

has anyone made any comments about the corporate culture within Micros~1?

I am pretty well convinced that even if I am perceived as being a coding genius beyond all doubt, I would NEVER be able to work there.

(Anyone who has seen my posts would probably know why)

I would be VERY interested in seeing what the political spectrum of Micros~1 employees are, how many voted for Trump in 2020, how many are registered Republicans, and so on. Was THIS (or anything related to it) in the survey? [business insider wants me to subscribe to read it, and I really didn't want to, and didn't see much else on teh intarwebs in a limited search]

I did see the mention of terms 'diversity' and 'inclusion' and things like that in other articles (including this one) but it has been my general observation that "inclusion" of political conservatives in "woke" companies may not be very "diverse". I do not know if Micros~1 is like this internally. It would be nice to know. If last year's election is any indicator, it would affect about HALF of the people in the USA.

If I am right, it would be a LOT like it is at Google... or any OTHER "big tech" mega-corporation.

related El Reg article: https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/23/mspoll_2021/

What the FLoC? Browser makers queue up to decry Google's latest ad-targeting initiative as invasive tracking

yeah about those cohorts - I didn't see how the cohort you belong to is determined, nor whether they analyze whether your click behavior differs from the others, so that you might be "switched" to a different one that more closely aligns with your specific online behavior.

And ANOTHER possibility: If there just happen to be 5 billion cohorts, each with a member of one... well I guess that's the same as a TRACKING ID now!

I can see the possibility of "cohort membership" being shifted around, based on AI analyzed online behavior patterns, such that you eventually end up in a cohort where everyone else is pretty much the same as you, for tracking and advertising purposes.

Then it doesn't matter about privacy at all - it becomes "group" behavior for all of the tracking and manipulation and anything else that goes along with it. But they don't "know" it's "you" specifically... after all they no longer NEED to. So they CIRCUMVENT the GDPR and other regulations that prevent them from DIRECTLY tracking, but conveniently they can do GROUP BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS. Except now, you've been "analyzed" into being a member of a group of people that is very similar to you, and all privacy protections are now (effectively) OFF.

And not even the best anonymized Tor-capable "purge cache and history on exit" browser [as long as it supports "cohorts" in any way] would prevent you from being TRACKED.

If _I_ can see how to do this, SO CAN THEY.

Microsoft OneDrive for Windows 7 drives off a cliff for business users

"from one of its social media orifices"

(from the article)

good one. heh.

Microsoft calls time on Timeline: Don't worry, more features that nobody asked for coming your way

Re: "We can't wait to hear what you think!"

I want an OS, not a circus

To them, the OS *IS* the MOST important thing on YOUR PC. This dates back to the MS-DOS days where arrogant developers would silently mess up your autoexec.bat and config.sys files, which required manual intervention to fix it BACK.

From the article: the ability to restart applications automatically following reboot and sign in

OK - this is what phones do, sometimes, if you want them to. However, didn't we used to have a 'Startup' folder in Start Menu to start things on bootup? Aren't there registry entries we could muck with to make that happen? And I've seen 3rd party GUI tools for non-guru users that leverage these.

So here's the thing: it's bad enough when malware takes over these "features". Let's not allow regular applications to do it, too. I may NOT want to spend an extra 30 seconds booting up to recover whatever web pages were visible when I powered off last. Or maybe I do. But browsers typically let me "recover" that state when I start them myself. Or choose NOT to.

I can only see this causing even MORE inconvenience, having to MANUALLY SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING EVERY TIME I POWER OFF.

don't forget the disappearance of the Windows 7 and XP "look and feel"

and the traditional Start Menu (not that "start thing" of Win-10-nic)

Even with start menu replacements, there's still SO MUCH that STILL needs to go away, from ads and spyware to "the Micros~1 Logon" that you're strong-armed into using.

So Micros~1 continues to get it "bass ackwards" with respect to Win-10-nic "features'

And all they needed to do... ALL they needed... was to make Windows 7 more robust and reliable and to fully support newer hardware. And it would have COST THEM LESS to have done so.

It was Russia wot did it: SolarWinds hack was done by Kremlin's APT29 crew, say UK and US

it seems too easy to me, like they were SUPPOSED to conclude it was Russia wot dun it

And after a rather quick investigation (in my opinion, as it was NOT that long ago this happened), we hear an implied message similar to "Nothing to see, move along..." like we're not supposed to dig any further, now. The perp was found. It was Russia wot dun it.

(yet, my instincts tell me that there is more to this - how far down DOES that rabbit hole go?)

NSA helps out Microsoft with critical Exchange Server vulnerability disclosures in an April shower of patches

Re: and I remember vaguely

I use sendmail with an IMAP server (I use Cyrus but I set it up over a decade ago and it just works). Other solutions obviously exist. This one seemed just fine when I set it up. Integrating Cyrus was pretty easy. I'm using the FreeBSD version of sendmail.

No need for bloat-ness and security craters, like Micros~1 Exchange

FBI deletes web shells from hundreds of compromised Microsoft Exchange servers before alerting admins

Re: Fore!

A South Texas attorney?

As long as an attorney is able to argue cases in Federal court (passed whatever bar exams, etc.), that should be fine, yeah. It's also possible that the FBI hired a private attorney, or has a law firm under contract. This would not be unusual, really. However you would normally expect a government attorney to argue such cases.

Re: Dangerous precedent.

Not as dangerous as you might think. A court had to approve it, with a paper trail of people and agencies to file lawsuits against, in case something went horribly wrong.

Back during the 'Code Red' infection, the malware resided in memory but not on disk, yet it opened up a CMD shell accessible via a listening TCP port. So if someone (nobody I know of course) were to get an infection attempt from "some IP address", that person could have written a bot (but nobody did this, it's probably not legal) to use the CMD back door to shut down the web server and make the virus go away. Of course the machine would get infected again as soon as one of the many code red bots detected it, so the only REAL fix was to patch or shut off the web server.

Similarly here, except the FBI got court approval first and apparently had a list of IP addresses to work with already (a court would require this).

The COVID-19 pandemic is still going – and so is the PC buying spree: Shipments up 55% on the Before Times

Re: Where have all the PCs gone?

The whole WFH assessment stuff is going to kick off properly soon as this becomes permanent

I hope so, and that WFH passes "the test". Occasionally "in the office" [I believe] is more productive for a LOT of us. Not everyone, of course, but a LOT of us.

The PC sales statistics now actually coincide with something I'd been saying for a long time, that the market stats are NEW SALES and not "I like what I already own". For those of us happy with our existing hardware, which in my case dates back to 2007-ish, I might be constantly running 4 or 5 'PC' computers simultaneously with various OSs and use cases, but the "PC sales" stats will NEVER reflect it.

But when people finally NEED to replace the old hardware, sales spike up.

It is 60 years since the first cosmonaut reached orbit and 40 years since the Shuttle first left the launchpad

Re: Ah when we took risks to achive great things.

they were test pilots

Fire up that Macintosh II: Retro techhead gives the web a Netscape 1.1 makeover

Re: We could argue all day over...

Sites made entirely of JS can die in a fire.

Yes but THEN what will we do with all of those JS web coders?

Microsoft drops 64-bit OneDrive into the pool: Windows on ARM fans need not apply. As usual

Re: Port to ARM

the problems I've seen on ARM vs x86 vs amd64 are compiler related.

As an example (for gcc anyway), the default character type is signed on x86 and amd64, but UNsigned on ARM.

Occasionally this causes problems with bit-wise operations and comparisons. Your program may no behave *exactly* the same. Similarly for 32-bit vs 64-bit, where in some cases the default size of 'int' actually makes a difference.

To fix the problem, you can try using standardized C types like 'int8_t' instead of 'char', for all variables, so that there are NO unnecessary surprises. Yeah, you might have to edit your code. A bit.

Otherwise, C is C and C++ is C++. But then again, Micros~1 doesn't JUST use C and C++ these days. They (unfortunately) have that "CLR" thing formerly known as ".Not" that (for some reason) they insist on using EVEN FOR C++, and the lingos like VB and C-pound that rely on it.

It is a fair bet that the CLR itself is ALSO a major stumbling block to ARM programs running properly, regardless of the many re-writes it's apparently undergone since TIFKAM was first foisted upon us (and ARM was proposed as a supported platform).

(and don't EVEN get me started on UWP or anything newer coming down the pike...)

Re: Dead on arrival

Micros~1 is apparently still up to their "let background processes spin instead of going into a wait state" tricks again...

I discovered DECADES ago, in the Win 95 beta [aka 'Chicago'], that if you wanted to have a background process NOT eat 100% of the CPU [it was monitoring system resources like memory usage if I remember correctly], you had to enter a bonafide WAIT STATE and not just call "yield()" or some other similar function. Earlier 16-bit windows had cooperative tasking via the message loop, which avoided the problem.

With background threads (without a message loop) I especially had this same issue, as my threads that polled things would eat 100% CPU unless I forced them NOT to. Usually 'wait on a mutex' or 'wait for file I/O' was sufficient to prevent that from happening, with a slight cost in performance. You could specify a timeout on the wait so you could still poll things, too. THAT solved it, more or less.

Some time in the Windows 10 beta this problem creeped into NEARLY ALL of the TIFKAM code, or at least that's how it appeared to me when running it in a VM [in fact the TIFKAM stuff related to the Start Thing was partifularly bad about it, and several such applications appeared to actually fight one another while attempting interprocess communication]. I screamed loud about it, had arguments over why it was happening, and only deaf ears and somewhat condescending attitudes resulted.

Making the fans spin also means that laptop batteries drain unnecessarily, and that CPU clock throttling won't behave correctly. One Drive on your Mac apparently has this same problem. Maybe not all OSs or not all CPUs have this problem. But for the ones that do, it's very very very irritating.

And, from what you said, it appears as if nobody in Redmond has learned anything about such things, either

Re: It really does not need to be 64bit

I'm pretty sure there's a slight performance benefit to working with 64-bit values when you're running in amd64 mode, which is probably offset a bit by the fact that you HAVE to now work with 64-bit addresses. In my experience, the 64-bit executables are slightly larger and require slightly more RAM, but seem to perform [with my code, anyway] at about the same speed.

Maybe there's an algorithm or two that can significantly benefit from either 32-bitness or 64-bitness, but I haven't found it. Still, if you have a system with less than 4G of RAM on it, you're probably better off running a 32-bit OS unless you have some compelling reason not to.

And the beauty of 32-bit code is that the same binary generally runs on both the 32-bit AND 64-bit version of that OS. It makes distribution of the code a little easier.

(but I had to load 64-bit Linux on a ~4G box because things like Android Studio basically demand it nowadays...)

Re: Does it matter?

"They" could just do the data snooping inspections while it's "in the cloud" (i.e. on their serves), so 32-bit vs 64-bit on the client wouldn't matter...

Airline software super-bug: Flight loads miscalculated because women using 'Miss' were treated as children

Re: Who was the developer?

Why use title rather than anything else

I think the obvious elephant in the room has been avoided. And, here comes Captain Obvious [me].

If an entire American football team decided to self-identify as 'Miss' on their next flight, then this whole algorithm would be thrown on its head. Sorta like a team of elephants self-identifying as "mice".

(how come nobody else said anything like this?)

[troll icon, for obvious reasons]

weight sensors under the seats makes a lot more sense. Who knows, they might pay for themselves over time with better takeoff performance and fuel cost reduction.

Re: Not necessarily.

ok, how about weight sensors in the seats then? Even an approximate value would justify adding a few coins to the cost of the seat... [I've been looking at price of pressure sensors lately, and they're not that expensive and often use I2C]. Extra added bonus, you'd know if the seat is empty at any time during the flight.

Imagine your data center backup generator kicks in during power outage ... and catches fire. Well, it happened

Re: This would never have happened at a certain broadcaster I used to work for.

your standard 5 gallon portable fuel can would do it. No offroad vehicle is complete without one. Just fill up a bunch of them, put them on a cart capable of holding the weight and navi-guessing the terrain, transfer to the diesel generator's tank when you arrive, and rinse/repeat until full.

Jeff Bezos supports US tax rise after not paying it for two years – and paying tiny amount in 2019

Re: Ah, tax laws

A turnover tax would ALSO mess up inventory control for manufacturing and most likely DRIVE IT OFF SHORE. You'd see a lot of sub-contract distribution centers in China (for example) directly shipping to customers, thus avoiding any inventory at all within the borders of the taxing authority. And even if it WERE paid (instead of avoided), the cost would be passed on to the consumer. What, people thought that "mega-corps you want punished" would just dip their hands a little deeper into some wellsopring of CASH they have laying about??? No, they'll pass the costs on to consumers, an excuse to jack up prices or scrape revenue from them by some other means...

let alone the additional accounting nightmares for sales and VAT taxes later, because people WOULD complain a LOT about "taxing the tax" otherwise...

increase of tax *RATES* for high income earners does NOT tax people like BEZOS...

It taxes the MIDDLE CLASS WAGE EARNERS who are trying to *BECOME* "the rich", MOSTLY upper management and small business owners.

And if you tax SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS do you think they will be

* hiring more people

* increasing employee wages and benefits

* investing in future business growth

Or, will their otherwise "disposabl income" *NOW* be locked into being RE-DISTRIBUTED by GOVERNMENTS to BUY VOTES with in the form of WEALTH CONFISCATION TAXES???

And "the TRULY rich" like Bezos, who contributed in various ways to DEMO[N,C]RAT candidates, won't pay even an extra DIME in REAL taxes. Do not doubt me, Loopholes are the LEAST of his advantages. There are trusts, income deferment, non-profit "charity" corporations, off-shoring, yotta yotta yotta all working in his favor.

These people must be elitists with NO conscience.

Yep, the 'Who owns Linux?' case is back from the dead

and it's reason for living? "To Blathe"

which is exactly what they seem to be doing. Call their bluff and be done with it.

(regardless of whether teh intarwebs believes that 'blathe' is an actual verb meaning 'bluff')

Re: @FIA - A real cancer

Imposing monthly subscriptions on everything that is not a phone or tablet is a goal that's worth pursuing

Not if you are in business to SATISFY your customers instead of EXPLOITING them...

"Imposing" things that way foments *REBELLION*. How long before software authors that targeted windows lose their market share and stop further windows development? (MS once recognized the importants of Developers, Developers after all) Nobody outside of mega-corporations is going to RENT their software, not when there are SO many alternatives, and "Imposing" would rapidly shift the market to "non-Imposing" alternatives.

And if Linux were to become "a rental" as well, there is STILL FreeBSD!!!

Re: A real cancer

the absolute pig headed refusal that some things can NEVER EVER change fascinates me.

no, unfortunately, some of those things CAN change, and it's nearly always for the WORSE when they do...

So it's more like some things should NEVER EVER change.

If Micros~1 were serious about their 'Linux in Windows' subsystem they'd make an equivalent Wine-like subsystem to seamlessly run Windows GUI applications (both 32-bit and 64-bit) under Linux and FreeBSD, alongside X11 applications, on your Mate, Cinnamon, lxde, or other desktop. I'd pay money for that. Maybe the 'Mint' folks could help...

Re: The question of how much?

SCOs intellectual property, being "re-gifted" like an ugly tie

If they value it high enough, it might even help out with the next bankruptcy settlement...

They said it'd never happen, but here we are in the year of our Lord 2021 and Microsoft has its own OpenJDK flavour

Not feeding enhancements back into the mainstream code - isn't that what got them sued by Sun in the first place? A JVM that had windows-related enhancements for Java??? Or are they being super-careful now to avoid them being enhancements to the lingo itself?

IBM, Red Hat face copyright, antitrust lawsuit from SCO Group successor Xinuos

Re: Ah shit ...

OBVIOUSLY you are not a l[aw]yer

Re: you can't kill UNIX

yeah well the options for POSIX utilities occasionally get distro-specific enhancements, and there are differences between BSD and GNU versions as well. Big whoop.

icon, because, facepalm

both parties copied it from FreeBSD, which is legal

I wish this had gotten more attention.

I'm already farmiliar with FreeBSD

I smell a POSSIBLE BUSINESS VENTURE [converting Linux systems to FreeBSD]

Also NetBSD, OpenBSD, others. The BSD kernel has its own copyrights and whatnot and was sanitized DECADES ago. In fact, maybe SCO et al had copyright violations of BSD CODE !!!

(wouldn't THAT be a nice twist of fate?)

icon, because, FreeBSD

Canonical releases Ubuntu on Windows Preview with early builds, new tools for the brave

bass-ackwards

Should be making it possible to run WINDOWS APPLICATIONS on a Linux desktop, like Wine, only officially blessed by Micros~1, like the OSX subsystem they did for Windows XP applications a while back...

(both 32-bit and 64-bit seamlessly on 64-bit systems, which last I checked, Wine had trouble doing)

If Micros~1 released it as an add-on product for Linux, and it required me paying for it, I think I'd pay for it.

New systemd 248 feature 'extension images' updates immutable file systems without really updating them

Re: Errr but...

but if applications begin to *RELY* *TOO* *HEAVILY* on obscure and ridiculous "features" supplied by systemd, it will only encumber the BSDs and Devuan and other "non-systemd" Linux flavors with having to WORK AROUND IT.

I hope devs will not rely on such features, and will NOT assume systemd is "there". I fear they just might jump into the lemming herd and do exactly THAT...

(it's bad enough when they assume /proc or /sys exist as they do in Linux, or WORSE, Pulse Audio - even as a PORT on FreeBSD, Pulse Audio tends to interfere with OSS whenever the server is running)

X.Org says it's saving a packet with Packet after migrating freedesktop.org off Google Kubernetes Engine

Re: Cloud Costs

I've been looking at another ISP for my company domain again. The accounts are being migrated and I would lose a couple of features I want to keep. Fortunately, a comparable service [to the existing capabilities] exists.

In the mean time I've had to look at a lot of hosting options and pricing.

In short, AWS, Azure, and Google are *NOT* the only game in town. Many lesser expensive alternatives exist. And it may benefit them to combine their cloudy services with a hybrid shared/dedicated hosting platform for admin things. Based on what I saw in the article it may be the "adinistrative" crunching that's doing them in.

(you know how managers are, "what's the average man hour for XXX type of YYY and can I get that in my e-mail every monday morning, summarized and totaled?" - multiply that by a dozen or so, and CLOUD SERVICE STICKER SHOCK ensues)

Sierra Nevada Corporation resurrects plans for crewed Dream Chaser spaceplane

Not quite sure what the point of an inflatable habitat is.

I would guess it's all about cost. Structural supports are heavy and cost money to launch into orbit.

Rocket fuel tanks are pressurized to make them nice and stiff, and probably to improve fuel pump performance at the same time. As an example, take a couple of empty paper towel rolls and try this experiment:

* Stack weights on a paper towel tube that's pure vertical. Most likely you'll squish it after a small amount of weight.

* Now, inflate a balloon inside the tube [make sure it fills the tube] and observe what the balloon air pressure does to the paper towel tube.

(this is why rocket fuel tanks are pressurized)

So: the air pressure in this case is providing the structural strength. you need air pressure anyway inside the people tank, so you might as well work WITH it. Win-Win

I would assume that, like a car tire, there are re-enforcement bands that keep the pressure from over-inflating the container. With a pre-stress OUTwards, you can actually withstand even MORE stress INWARDS, and depending, it might withstand a collision with a space rock (or space junk) better than a solid structure.

"Steel Belted Radial" space enclosures. Works for me.

for an April Fool twist (regardless of whether this article is comedic April 1 material), how about the following:

* subcontracted to a company that makes inflatable auto-pilots [think 'Airplane' the movie]

* has face painted around external airlock (with a very surprised look)

* Commissioned by former U.S. President Bill Clinton

MANY more are possible - we ALL have imaginations. Heh.

Satellites, space debris may have already brightened night skies 10% globally – and it's going to get worse

it's the same arguments regarding street lights. San Diego metro area is near Mt. Palomar Observatory. Over the years the observatory's night sky requirements have influenced the color and placement of street lights in the metro area. It's a compromise between dark and dangerous night time streets vs an unusable observatory.

Orange and yellow lights that direct their light downwards seem to work pretty well. But comments earlier about LED lights, and considering the high level of blue [which is VERY bad for your eyes, I might add] and their effect on light pollution relates to this.

OK we paint the satellites orange. Helps to find them if they "splash down" too I bet... [ok they'd burn up but still, the color of an orange life vest might be filterable by telescopes]

Re: Junk screen

W.T.F... ???

Re: Altitude affects the duration too

Yes they are only an issue for a very small set of astronomers which look for variable objects near sunrise/sunset. This doesn't affect most 'deep-space' astronomy.

Then, if THIS is the case, WHY are their claims of illuminating the night sky by 10% ?

There seems to be a contradiction here...