* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Dell: 60% of our people won't be going back into an office regularly after COVID-19

bombastic bob Silver badge
Terminator

Re: We seem to have lost the point of commerce

"How many WFH people does it take to produce a Dell PC from scratch?"

It would depend on the number of "lights out" and heavily automated factories (etc.) there are in that process. It's coming, yeah.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"As for all that empty office space it will create"

Depending on how convenient it is to set up, they could do it like a mini-hotel for office space. All of the work-from-homers who want an actual OFFICE to go to could actually RENT an office room, store stuff there, get advantages of business internet connectivity, yotta yotta. Ideally it would be close to home and in an area where parking isn't a problem, etc..

But yeah this won't cover all of the opened-up office space in downtown areas, where people won't want a private office [most likely they'd pick one that's closer to home, as people flee the urban areas for suburbs even more than before]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I get I'm in a microscopically small minority, but...

Those are all good points. But how about a hybrid solution where you have office space that's 1/2 as big as you would normally need (double up desks in cubes, etc., "hot desk" or even drop the walls, it's only for half a day a week), You can have 'designated on-site days' for different parts of the crew, who are relevant to one another's work, where you have meetings and do colab work.

that seems to work the best, in my opinion, for the vast majority of cases.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Extroverts hate it

"Check in on your extrovert friends"

not sure that categorizes me very well... being as I score as a strong 'ENTP' on the Myers-Briggs thing. 'E' is for 'extrovert and so it's part of how I process things. But you may be on the right track, just labeling it as 'extrovert' rather than 'socialite' (which would be my characterization).

I would actually suggest (based on Myers-Briggs kinds of things) that ENFP would be "the talker", with the 'F' being 'Feeling' (vs 'T' for 'Thinking'). Not so much the 'extrovert' but the one who feels and is ALSO extrovert...

'ENFP' is categorized by some as "The inspirers" as opposed to "ENTP" "The inventors" or (my favorite) the MAD SCIENTISTS! [I love MAD SCIENCE!]. Yeah mad scientists don't need external inspiration - the science itself IS the inspiration!!!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: I get I'm in a microscopically small minority, but...

You're a talker, aren't you?

good catch, I guess [but I was entertained, so up-vote]

although some dynamics like the occasional conversation or joke helps relieve tension in the office, some people _are_ like that... all talk, no work, and from home, no excuse to consume "wall time" vs working in bursts (interrupted with enough goof-off time to stay sane) with flexible hours that help you put your peak performance on the clock instead of "wall time".

difficult problem arises - my head is foggy, I'm gonna think about it for a while - grab lunch and hit the game console for 2 hours - ok I think I know what to do about it! work, work, work... [much less of a drag than being confined to an office and dealing with creative block]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: Efficiency gains

"our employee engagement and productivity is at an all-time high."

As long as work-at-homers are honest about their hours spent actually doing work, it's been my point for a LONG time, that the flexibility of work-from-home makes you more productive than 'wall time' at an office.

"Welcome Aboard" to the rest of the world. I'm glad to see it!

Engineer admits he wiped 456 Cisco WebEx VMs from AWS after leaving the biz, derailed 16,000 Teams accounts

bombastic bob Silver badge
Alert

He accessed Cisco's AWS five months after quitting Cisco.

So why is a security-oriented networking company NOT sufficiently cleaning up their login info (like changing passwords, deleting stale logins) after an employee leaves? Unless it was accessed with a deliberately installed back door...

Maybe I missed it but did they say WHY he left Cisco? Did he have a reason (in his own mind at any rate) to retaliate against them?

If I were his current employer I'd smile and carefully assign him a limited number of tasks while changing all of the access codes, without his knowledge. And not fire him. Reason for termination: incarceration. Works for me.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Headmaster

Re: And the point is...

Single sign on helps a lot there...

Unless it's "root"... oh, and I fixed the grammar too. See icon,

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: And the point is...

not adhering to industry standard IT practices

There is still a distinct possibility that the perpetrator inserted a back door into the AWS code, and used THAT to do the damage. At least, that's my take on it.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: This Is A Job For An American

If it was possible to bring down the CISCO WebEx by shooting at it, then an American would be perfectly qualified

That was almost funny! Yee Haaw! (heh)

TikTok CEO quits after less than three months in the job

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Jump or pushed?

or the other possibility is that the CEO was attempting to resolve this problem and, in doing so, realized that the claims against TIkTok had actual MERIT, and as such, did not want his name associated with the aftermath. But of course, if you want a good recommendation for your NEXT gig, say nice things on the way out the door.

iPhone soon to be Hecho en Mexico? Taiwan's Foxconn, Pegatron mulling going south of the US border – report

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Wouldn't that be ironic?

yeah, well, I expect 'Hecho en Mexico' or similar to be proudly displayed on the package someplace. There's a bit of pride in what they do, south of the border, and they'll do a good job.

And I bet there will be the opportunity for more automated assembly in Mexico, newer equipment etc. If you're going to make a capital investment in buildings, equipment, and hiring, the cost of transportation and "other things" make Mexico a sensible choice. And, let's face it - more automation means you don't have to hire quite as many new people to do the same job...

[I'll avoid a mental image of hundreds of people hand-placing components with tweezers and magnifiers, because I don't think they actually do that any more in China... or do they?]

Weary traveler of 2020, rest here with some soothing, happy tech news. FreeBSD finally merges in OpenZFS

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

FreeBSD and "Linuxy" code

often time FreeBSD (and the other BSDs) might lag behind others because developers often ignore their existence and write "Linuxy" code, code that makes assumptions that you're ONLY going to run it on Linux. That's not very POSIX of them, but it happens a LOT.

And FreeBSD has had a good strong working ZFS implementation running for a LONG time now. So porting FROM FreeBSD's implementation would make good sense.

However, two split ZFS code branches appeared instead. One, FreeBSD's ZFS implementation (which I've been using for several years now), and OpenZFS, apparently targeting Linux. But which one got "most of the love"? The 'Linuxy" one, apparently...

Yet, maybe Linux could benefit from some FreeBSD ZFS features, too. (As far as OpenZFS features go, I'm actually pretty happy with how it is on FreeBSD at the moment so "meh").

Here's one thing FreeBSD has done VERY right with ZFS: A few years ago FreeBSD more or less perfected "boot into ZFS" so you could have a pure ZFS system. But if you want, you can still boot UFS and have ZFS volumes as well. Setting the system up for "all ZFS" or UFS boot is pretty easy. In fact, pure ZFS is a bit easier (for new installs).

I've seen references to "boot into ZFS" being done in Linux, but everything I've read so far seems "hacky" and may be "not officially supported" by the distro (or anything else for that matter).

Relying on plain-text email is a 'barrier to entry' for kernel development, says Linux Foundation board member

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: "they don't know how to send a plain-text email"

Sending plain text e-mail as a handy test for minimal IT skills

YES!!!

From the article: It is just that the modern mail client has intentionally moved towards HTML

"Modern" - like the way certain desktop environments are called "modern" ?

If my inbox gets an e-mail that says "you must enable HTML to view the content" it's automatically marked as spam. For security reasons, I _NEVER_ view e-mail as HTML unless there's some compelling reason to do so and I know exactly who sent it, etc.. And NEVER on a windows machine does HTML mail get viewed nor previewed in other-than-plain-text.

Thunderbird's EASY to configure for plain text, viewing as well as sending. I think that "modern" e-mail clients SHOULD be able to do the same thing.

/me points out that many years ago I circulated an e-mail to friends that deliberately illustrated the dangers of HTML e-mail, including script and embedded multimedia content you could not turn off - you'd hear me doing a "devil voice" saying "what is this?" "It's a message from HELL!" along with embedded flaming things and rotating pentagrams, and things like that. And of course if I could do THAT, then anybody could...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: "plain old ASCII text is a barrier to communications"

when I first saw the title i was thinking "what, some idiot wants HTML mail instead?" But then I read the article and realized what it was about.

From the article: Should it migrate toward something more like, say, issues and pull requests on the Microsoft-owned GitHub?. (/me points out it had that before MS bought it).

Yes, Github's "issues" system might be one possible answer. In short, you need a blog-like environment in which you can track things. Example, when you do a branch merge to a pull request, an issue is effectively created in which you can comment on the resulting merge. And ideally it tracks back to the other issues involved in the decisions that led up to the pull request, all of the people discussing it, yotta yotta. I like it, at any rate, even with its imperfections.

So in a way the answer is already staring at them. Just "make it better".

and last I checked, you can still track issues with e-mail notifications.

what I feared: FB or Tweet-like threads designed for 4-inch phone screens oriented vertically, emojis, excessive HTML-i-ness, and bandwidth-hogging fluff. OK some of that is already in 'issues' but still...

The truth is, honest people need willpower to cheat, while cheaters need it to be honest

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: "moral default"

re: MRI-based lie detector

Perhaps. Perhaps...

Start Me Up: 25 years ago this week, Windows 95 launched and, for a brief moment, Microsoft was almost cool

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Summer 95

In spring of '95, MS's (beta) plus pack had internet access, unlike many other networks, via MSN. It took CompuServe another YEAR to get internet access... and AOL too, as I recall.

I thought IE 1.0 was pretty cool. No excessive fluff, lightweight, did what a browser SHOULD do. And nothing more... pretty much what Netscrape and Mosaic were doing.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Happy memories

I watched Ballmer do his 'Developers' thing at one of the conferences - I think it was the 1993 PDC in Anaheim, wasn't it? [this was back when MS was "cool"]

[FreeBSD and Devuan user, now.]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

parts were cooperative nmulti-tasking, parts were pre-emptive. It depends on whether the GUI was involved.

Although some have said that the scheduler wasn't truly pre-emptive until OSR2, it's pretty clear to me that 32-bit code with threads worked as advertised... and were pre-emptive. Whereas anything dealing with the GUI wasn't.

From the article: And the biggest was the Start button which, even a quarter of a century later still exists albeit after various redesigns and rethinks.

"They" should re-think things BACK to the WAY THEY WERE, thankyouverymuch... (change is NOT necessarily "for the better" - I have seen inevitable change in a package of raw meat - it's called "Rotting")

If you think Mozilla pushed a broken Firefox Android build, good news: It didn't. Bad news: It's working as intended

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Just in time?

at least you CAN turn it off... for now...

Shades of what they did when AUSTRALIS rolled out.

Don't they LEARN? (apparently NOT)

icon, because, facepalm

Microsoft sides with Epic over Apple developer ban, supports motion for temporary restraining order

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Cynical

in some cases, existing anti-trust laws prevent you from owning everything from one end to the other, such that "fair competition" can exist

And I do not believe that iOS devices being locked into ONLY "the apple store" is in any way REMOTELY close to "a fair playing field" when they dominate WAY too much of it like this. [so maybe some anti-trust action is due?]

But, thus far, Apple has "gotten away with it".

After all, it's their bat, their ball, their field, and their rules. Wanna play? Oh, and fork over money for the developer kit, you'll need one of THOSE, too... For each type of OS. And if you don't like it, go home. YOU can't play!

/me NOT an i-thing developer for that reason, among others

(Android, on the other hand, doesn't require "The Store", and the dev kit is FREE last I checked)

Chinese State media uses new release of local Linux to troll Trump

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: The OS also supports x86 CPUs flowing from the AMD’s joint venture in China ...

interesting. thanks.

some of these details are difficult to find in the various timelines published all over the place.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: The OS also supports x86 CPUs flowing from the AMD’s joint venture in China ...

well, historically Linux was an x86 "UNIX clone" of sorts, back in the beginning, except that the kernel was a full re-write with gnu tools in the userland. Other archs were added as computer systems developed further. The BSDs were early on the multi-arch stuff, seeing as the x86 port was "just another arch" for BSDs and UNIX in general. But Linux was traditionally x86, and thankfully started including other archs early on to power all of those embedded devices!

In My Bombastic Opinion, Linux development may have directly led to the release of BSD 4.2 (and emergence of FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc.) shortly after. All good!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: So 2021 will finally be the year of Linux on the Desktop!

It doesn't bother me if China creates a new Linux distro. In fact, it's kinda cool. The more the merrier!

Question: how does this compare to CentOS or a commercial distro like Red Hat Enterprise? Quality, features, support, customization... anything?

AND... will it REMAIN 100% compliant with GPL? [I fear they will try to 'sneak in' spyware or require it be installed on computers inside of China... or for ANYONE they directly do business with OUTSIDE of China!]

WSL2 is so last year: Linux compatibility layer backported to older Windows 10 versions

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: What Linux add ons can you install?

if you ask me, I'd prefer a windows subsystem to run ON LINUX [like Wine only blessed and supported]

I'd pay MONEY for THAT...

(then we can have all of the Linux add-ons we want, and the desktop we want, and the look/feel of window decorations etc. that we want, NOT have to deal with "Settings", or "Start Thing", yotta yotta)

TikTok takes to the courts to challenge US ban

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

A foreign-owned company suing the US Government

Not just "A foreign-owned company suing the US Government", but suing to OPERATE FREELY WITHIN A FOREIGN COUNTRY as if they were CITIZENS. "They have no rights" is an understatement. And last I checked, the executive branch (in the USA) has complete jurisdiction on whether or not to allow foreign entities to do ANYTHING inside the USA.

I expect UK or EU would be the same way, more or less. "National Sovereignty" etc.

Uncle Sam to blow millions on getting fusion power finally working – with the help of AI

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: But how long will it take to get there?

From the article: fusion seems to be one of those technologies that is always a decade away.

Snarkily I might suggest that when you pay for perpetual RESEARCH, you get what you pay for.

But I suspect it will be more like "privatized outer space" in that, once you encourage private industry to do its OWN research [instead of having DoE and/or DoD own it all at one level or another] then you'll suddenly have some "for profit" reactors being built, and then the floodgates will open.

But if you pay for RESEARCH, you may only get what you pay for.

Q: how come ONLY tokomak is being used at the moment? I understand there are a couple of other very interesting designs, some with magnetic confinement, that aren't making headlines...

A: Maybe ONLY tokomak is getting funded for RESEARCH ???

But we have a lot of cheap oil right now so the urgency and financial factors aren't quite "there". When tech finally makes it possible to produce CHEAP fusion power, expect wacky environmentalists and other protest groups to show up and do things to frustrate its development...

Chromium devs want the browser to talk to devices, computers directly via TCP, UDP. Obviously, nothing can go wrong

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: It will certainly be shoved down our throats

I think a different orifice will be involved... (ouch, even the though of it makes it hard to sit)

Alright! Who's stoked for Windows 10 20H2? Anyone? Well, it's ready for commercial pre-release validation anyway

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Time for another 6 hours of lost computer time

Last week, a computer at the customer site decided to "update itself" for 6 hours again. The computer's user powered it up only to get the update notice, which he then allowed to procede... [maybe he had no choice this time? had it been TOO long putting it off?]

In any case, it "updated" from before 7 AM to after 1PM, and operated "more piggy than usual" for another hour. Very similar to the LAST time this happened.

And he's gonna have to go through that *AGAIN* ???

"Updates" are *HIGHLY* *OVERRATED*

Space station update: Mystery tiny but growing air leak sparks search for hole

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Leaky Space Station....

when the tire shop employees need to find a leak, they dunk the tire in soapy water and rotate it until they see bubbles... (and I've heard of people spraying soapy water on high pressure air piping to check for leaks)

Also possible, emit something visible (like smoke) in the center of the compartment and watch which way it moves over time.

Additionally, the location of a leak may have a different I.R. or U.V. appearance than the surrounding metal, especially when struck with solar wind. Perhaps a (robotic?) camera on the outside could scan for it?

SQLite maximum database size increased to 281TB – but will anyone need one that big?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: My FAT isn’t as big as your

281TB is 48 bits. just thought I'd mention it. I had to do math to figure that out. In short, it's 4GB (32-bits) times 64k (16-bits). That makes 48 bits.

42 bits would've been more fun, though...

Pretty wild that a malicious mailto: link might attach your secret keys and files from your PC to an outgoing message

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: hah! paranoia pays off

yeah I generally don't trust 'mailto' links either, and always examine the e-mail before sending something. Having attachments pre-loaded [especially if it's something important from a known location] is obviously bad [what is /etc/shadow and my e-mail address book doing attached to this e-mail?] but I haven't directly clicked on links in e-mails in YEARS, if not even DECADES.

That is because I _ALWAYS_ view e-mail as plain text. It's amazing how many unsolicited e-mails have embedded links within them, sometimes to embedded attachments, but often long alphabet-soup links to web sites that can THEN track you or confirm you received their spam. And of course they hide it with a legit looking link inside the 'a' tag, which is obvious bogus when NOT viewed as HTML...

and a 'mailto' within an e-mail would show up the same way. web site links, however, are (obviously) still subject to trickery.

Good news: NASA boffins spot closest near-Earth asteroid ever. Bad news: We never saw it coming. Good news: It's also really small

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: School run

Elon's previously unreported personal vehicle... IN! SPACE!

Robust Rust trust discussed after Moz cuts leave folks nonplussed: Foundation mulled for coding language

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Is Rust overrated?

Although I'm sure the lingo has its fans, is it possible that Rust has been OVERRATED?

Is Mozilla having to cut corners BECAUSE they were funding its development?

Saying it grew by 245 percent is also a bit misleading. According to the TIOBE index, Rust is currently at number 20 in their popularity ranking, with 0.74 percent. Compare this to C and Java, which are 1 and 2, 16.98% and 14.43%, respectively. And Rust isn't even on their chart...

So a 245% increase would be from about 0.3% to about 0.74% [unless I did my math wrong]. I can't see the actual numbers on the TIOBE chart, either, though maybe if I searched long enough I could find out what it was. Still, saying it has a 245% increase to 0.74% sounds like a VERY misleading claim, only because it sounds way bigger than it really is in the presentation as "a 245% increase" even though it REALLY only went from "miniscule to tiny". [yeah this happens all of the time, though, doesn't it?]

So I hope that Rust fans can continue to have their lingo, and that's fine. Mozilla apparently doesn't want to fund it any more.

(and all of that talk of putting Rust in the Linux kernel last month, not sounding so cool any more...)

Linux kernel maintainers tear Paragon a new one after firm submits read-write NTFS driver in 27,000 lines of code

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: "NTFS is the default file system for Windows XP and later"

In non-NT versions of Windows (i.e. '9x and ME), FAT and FAT32 were the defaults. XP was the first "NT merge" version, with no ''9x/ME" style back-end version available as an alternative. I think this is kinda what they meant. NTFS became "the default" for Windows (in general) starting with XP.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

re-thinking the priorities of including this NTFS driver in the base kernel

NTFS support has its use, especially when writing disk imaging and recovery utilities that boot Linux from a CD/DVD [as one example].

Seriously, I think THIS is the best use of NTFS support in Linux. For this kind of use case, a FUSE driver would be just fine. If you're thinking of actually USING an NTFS volume between OSs for a multi-boot system, for anything other than "simple data file interchange", it might be time to re-think your priorities.

And the worst case: a high performance Linux-based server system that actually READS AND STORES DATA using NTFS. Seriously, why would anyone be using *THAT* INSTEAD of ZFS or even EXT4??? And so, the USE CASE for a "high performance kernel-based NTFS driver" seems very very limited to me...

It might be time for re-examining the use case, and though "thank you very much" for the contribution, if I were to contribute 25,000 lines of Linux kernel code to support a PDP VAX or HP 3000 minicomputer, I suspect that it would not actually make it into the official distribution... requiring SO much review effort and testing to maintain reliability standards, nobody would touch it.

but... as a FUSE driver, I'd gladly welcome a really good NTFS file system driver as an add-on package! I think the major distro maintainers would, too. And a FUSE driver should work with FreeBSD (and the other BSD's) and so on.

/me points out that there are several contributed kernel drivers that must be built from source, and you could always ship it THIS way, as a source package using something like Debian's "module-assistant" to build and install it. [all of the debian-based distros should have this]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Bit harsh

I would rather that they do a FUSE-based solution, and THEN work on the fuse kernel drivers so that they're as efficient as possible.

FUSE-based solutions would ALSO work on FreeBSD...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Why not in 0.5 file?

It also tends to generate more efficient code, if you don't gerrymander things just to avoid using a 'goto'.

We're talking KERNEL code, here. It's not the same as some GUI "app".

Pass that Brit guy with the right-hand drive: UK looking into legalising automated lane-keeping systems by 2021

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

out here in S. California, when the sign says 70Mph, nearly everyone goes 85...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

some caveats with this...

Out here in S. California, many freeways have been expanded and re-routed over the years, such that there are curves in the road where the lines between lanes don't follow the lines between sections of concrete. In those places, drivers sometimes drift towards the next lane because the extra lines in the road (dark lines between concrete) distract you, especially if you're tired or changing the radio station. Or on your phone...

If a lane-keeping system can distinguish between the white dashed lines between lanes, and the dark expansion material between concrete slabs, this is a good thing. But I suspect that robotic systems are MORE likely to be fooled by something that regularly distracts otherwise-attentive drivers.

I'm starting to think that the best solution might be to use special magnetic and/or IR reflective paint for lines between lanes, to ASSIST such technologies. I think this has been proposed before, and it adds to infrastructure costs. Lane-keeping systems would have to work without this, but if they DO have it, safety would be improved. Couple that with existing 'emergency braking' systems and it might stop a lot of accidents.

/me regularly uses cruise control in light to medium traffic. I think everyone else is doing this, too, as it tends to maintain close to the same speed over reasonably long distances. So 'lane control' would go with it. if I hate it I can always shut it off.

Trump administration reportedly offers Oracle cheap end to $400m wage discrimination case

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Wish us luck. We'll need it.

Roger Stone was NOT pardoned. His sentence was commuted. it's a little different. He's still guilty of a crime, but he won't have an excessively long sentence for it.

Similarly, when prison reform was being done, several "criminals" were either pardoned or had their sentences commuted. In at least one case an elderly black woman who was convicted of something early in her life, and received a VERY long prison sentence, finally got out of jail. I can't recall her name, but she was basically shown as one example of prison reform under Donald Trump, something that even OBAMA did not do... (and don't forget, Biden voted FOR some of the legislation that resulted in disproportionate sentencing of black convicts, which prison reform was intended to UN-do).

It's what chief executives do in the USA. Governors and Presidents can commute, pardon, re-sentence (but I think it has to be a shorter sentence), and so forth. it's a check/balance against the judicial branch.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Quid pro quo for sure

Everything in life is a "quid pro quo". Without details of the case and the proposed settlement, you can't judge what's going on here.

From the article: "Why might this have come about?"

What I think: The monetary settlement of $400 million didn't have enough regulatory oversight, and so the labor secretary wants to get THAT [which would help prevent future discrimination] in lieu of CASH. Oracle has a LOT of cash last I checked, though maybe not so much these days as it used to have.

If you want to punish a company that can AFFORD to pay out huge lawsuit settlements in lieu of ACTUALLY SOLVING problems, you don't go for a CASH settlement. Instead you offer them a concession, as Sun Tzu would recommend, something you can AFFORD to lose, but in doing so you put YOURSELF in a position of advantage.

So let's say the labor secretary wants to MONITOR the internals of Oracle. Well, they'll fight it to the ends of the earth, right? So you offer them a sweet deal, 1/10 the proposed amount, and in return, you get frequent AUDITS and other oversight, access to their internal paperwork, interviews with employees, yotta yotta yotta.

And yet, Oracle might just reject it and pay the $400 million... (or try for a different settlement). L[aw]yers. Go fig.

Still we do NOT know what's going on. We are intentionally left OUT of the loop on this. But if I apply my "Trump 'Art of the Deal' strategy projection" to the situation, this is what I come up with.

Let's see what actually happens!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Wish us luck. We'll need it.

It's now 244 years since the people of the United States freed themselves from the rule of George the Third. (and in summary: "More Trump-hate" following)

I believe that Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, who was elected on an ABOLITIONIST platform (because the Whig party was too fragmented to end slavery), received very similar treatment by many of his opponents during HIS term, as Donald Trump does now. Yet history tells a sightly more FAVORABLE story about Lincoln, doesn't it?

I should take your logic that says Donald Trump is some kind of king or dictator, and EASILY compare what he has done to what Obama had done before him. And of course, I believe Mrs. Clinton would have been WORSE (and Kamala if SHE ever takes the position... ~shudder~). And I think you will find that Trump follows the Constitution MUCH better than Obama EVER did.

So he's not a king, not a dictator, nor does he even REMOTELY act like one (think 'capricious tyranny' as an example - Trump does NOT do that). Trump is a leader, and a GOOD one. And yet, there is a LOUD minority out there who foment a LOT of Trump-hate, usually through un-true accusations and characterizations. And NOW, the USA is faced with a CLEAR choice between RADICAL SOCIALISM (or even COMMUNISM) and TRADITIONAL (i.e. CONSTITUTIONAL) AMERICA.

If THAT is not a "cross-roads" election, much like the ones in which Abraham Lincoln won, I don't know what else COULD be a cross-roads election. And of course, I will be voting for Republicans, including Donald Trump. I do NOT like socialism nor communism!. They need to be DEFEATED.

I suggest to you that if the USA "goes down" and becomes radically socialist or even COMMUNIST, under a Biden regime, that the U.K. and E.U. will go down WITH us. You don't want that. You should like Trump a LOT more... because of what he's STOPPING.

Where there's a .mil, there's Huawei: Pentagon allowed to keep using Chinese tech deemed too dangerous for everyone else – report

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: "That hasn't however, stopped the US and other nations . . ."

I actually think it's a bit of both...

"One rule for me, another for thee"

and

"lazy stinking bureaucrats"

Probably the most accurate model. it describes MOST of gummint these days...

(sadly - see icon)

US govt proposes elephant showers for every American after Prez Trump says trickles dampen his haircare routine

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Why assume he will win?

I don't think 170k deaths will matter one jot to them

Seriously? But to me, the 20+ million lost jobs matter MORE. Perspective, please. I think Trump is doing the right thing at the moment. We need to get BACK to work, and kids need to get BACK TO SCHOOL.

In a typical BAD influenza year, you'll see ~100,000 deaths in this country from influenza. but at least people do not LOSE THEIR JOBS and kids still GO TO SCHOOL. Perspective.

As for shower head flow rates, WHY is it GUMMINT'S business how strong the water flow is? Trump is right, again. Too many regulations. Time to GET RID of as many as possible!

icon, because, facepalm.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: As a side note ...

"I use a drill to remove the flow restriction in my shower. Works a treat."

Yes, I am VERY satisfied to do the EXACT SAME THING. Thank you shower head makers for making it SO easy!!! I'd rather control the flow using the valve than rely on someone else's opinion (particularly a gummint bureaucrat) of how much water flow I need to use...

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Winking red supergiants sneezing hot gas 650 light years away

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: An "outgassing event" is not a sneeze

birthing pains for a baby planet?

first thought: that gas and dust may someday coalesce into a stable orbit...

also thought: Planet Pffffft

Single-line software bug causes fledgling YAM cryptocurrency to implode just two days after launch

bombastic bob Silver badge
Joke

Reminds me of an Animaniacs cartoon

In one Animaniacs episode, they got the boss to reflexively sign a check for a Zillion dollars. One of them cries out "We're RICH!", breaking the 4th wall by holding the check up towards the (implied) camera. Then the boss sees the check and tears it up. With equal gusto, same one cries out "We're POOR!"

or something like that. Cue the 'runaway' leitmotif...

Made in China? Not for much longer, reckons Foxconn boss

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: This is probably for the best...

Human rights in Mexico are generally "ok" but the government tends to be filled with corruption because of the drug cartels, and so you have a lot of cartel-related organized crime and the things that generally go with it, turf wars, vice crimes, human trafficking, and so on, because of the cartels.

I think the recent history between the USA and Mexico is getting that cleaned up though. I live in a border town (San Diego), so I'm pretty well informed about these things. It got kinda bad for a while, due to the cartels running amok, but things have improving now. Seriously! And the Mexican government DOES have its problems, but human rights abuses generally aren't high on that list (otherwise I'd be hearing about it). After this virus thing blows over, I might take another trip to Tijuana and play tourist. It's good for a daily outing. The food's good, too, on Revolucion avenue.

Seriously, Mexico is a good place for building things. I forsee a lot of 'Hecho en Mexico' in the near future, at least for shipment into the USA and Canada.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: This is probably for the best...

actually... related to what you said about Saudi oil, the USA has become a major oil exporter recently.

So, buy OUR oil instead! Please!

And I think worldwide competition is already doing that with respect to manufacturing in China. They may have thought they had a stranglehold on world markets, and it looks like they were trying to do just that, but it didn't work, and now people are going elsewhere, for a variety of reasons.