* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Raytheon techie who took home radar secrets gets 18 months in the clink in surprise time fraud probe twist

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Secure Bag

the general practice with classified material is that it doesn't leave the location where it's stored. That was how it was back in the 80's, and I doubt it has changed. If you must transport it, you're supposed to do so in an approved manner. Although at times this may have been bent/gray, it was still "the rule".

In any case, working from home with a government contract, where security is concerned, is generally NOT allowed, EVAR. "Lose your security clearance" is just the tip of the iceberg.

Don't strain yourself, Zuck, only democracy at stake... Facebook makes half-hearted effort to flag election lies by President Trump

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Why no Internet voting?

modifying TCP packets via a "man in the middle" type of attack is trivial (you can study how netfilter does this sort of thing for FTP proxy support as an excellent example of Linux and how it handles these kinds of things, actual packet data editing on-the-fly within a netfilter module). This kind of threat includes SSL if the attack is sophisticated enough, and when it comes to getting certain *kinds* of politicians elected, you can expect botnets to get involved as well. Poisoning DNS "just for that day" when most people cast their votes is another option. And don't forget DDoS attacks and countless other things that could completely mess up an online process.

Somewhat recently I had a voter registration info mailing for someone I'd never met before show up in my mailbox with my address. I sent it back to the registrar of voters with an angry comment about having never met this person, and I double-checked at the polling place to make sure that this person's name was NOT on the list under my address (the volunteers at the polling place were more than happy to assist). Individual people CAN help to stop voter fraud, and this is ONE example of why the existing system makes it better.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: why aren't postal votes considered a fraud risk in the US?

"Without an iota of evidence."

you mean like THIS EVIDENCE ??

others also exist - this was one of the top results in a google search for "mail vote fraud evidence US", that wasn't a "snopes" or biased "fact check" site...

(you're welcome)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: I almost wonder if his politicization of coronavirus was deliberate

I don't know which seems more politically biased (in my bombastic opinion), the comments, or the article itself...

(yeah I'm a Trump voter but you knew that already)

[I need a bigger thumb-down icon]

China successfully launches Mars probe that packs an orbiter, lander, rover

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Will it be reliable?

worth noting, they seem to be using the 'air bag' method that U.S. rovers have successfully used to land on Mars. So 50/50 joke/serious is appropriate.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: Best wishes

agreed. the entire idea of privatizing space (so it becomes less prohibitively expensive to explore it) ought to include other nations' space programs as well as private companies in the USA, etc..

I wonder when India will send something...

/me wonders how long before a Russian company launches rockets from Baikonur... (or have I missed something?)

UK.gov admits it has not performed legally required data protection checks for COVID-19 tracing system

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: "No evidence of data being used unlawfully"

I thought there was GDPR, except it's gummint collecting the data.

"One law for ME, another law for THEE"

and a quote (as I remember it) from George Orwell's "Animal Farm"

"All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others"

Here's why your Samsung Blu-ray player bricked itself: It downloaded an XML config file that broke the firmware

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Samsung quality software

"Why is the XML parser not a separate sandboxed process "

doing THAT costs more. And it won't use that crappy little 3rd party library with the cool name... that the dev found pasted over on stack overflow one day, so he could play video games instead of write code... yotta yotta yotta.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Why...? Just Why?

Any kind of forced "phone home" updates _ARE_ highly overrated... and the IOT is _NO_ exception!

It was a lesson in "why the Micros~1 way is BAD". Meanwhile, many bricked boxes later, they were ALSO caught revealing your private viewing secrets by regularly 'phoning them home'.

*BAD* Sammy. No biscuit!

Twitter hackers busted 2FA to access accounts and then reset user passwords

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Karmic Justice for this incompetence

social media is highly overrated, and the world really isn't how it's portrayed there.

I'd like to think that this could be a wakeup call for alleged 'twitter addicts' that (straw man) get all of their news, social interaction, and other information from twitter. If such people really exist, yeah...

as for me - yet another reason NOT to use Tw[a,i]tter.

ReactOS hits a milestone – actually hiring a full-time developer. And we've got our talons on the latest build to see what needs fixing

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Very negative approach

ReactOS is the OS that I _WANT_ to succeed at doing what it is designed intended to do. When can I have it [working]?

Looks like I should download the latest again, see what's been fixed, what hasn't. The thing that irritated me the most before was the LACK of ability to turn OFF "auto arrange" on the desktop icons. 2nd to that, SAMBA support that actually WORKS. (I want to use the NET command from the CMD shell and work with samba shares the way I would in XP or 7)

As I recall networking worked well enough to be able to web surf and download things. but that was about it.

I shall remain cautiously optimistic.

Rust code in Linux kernel looks more likely as language team lead promises support

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Re: Why RUST is needed

"Developers can't write secure code in any language"

*THIS* developer (me) writes VERY secure code ALL of the time, mostly in C. In fact, I make a POINT of it.

a big thumbs down to the over-generalization.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: Let's look at a few Rust facts ...

"But for the common use case space really isn't a big deal "

Except... when it comes to KERNEL programming! It is a completely different thing. Tiny and hyper-efficient. That's what KERNEL programming requires.

And for THAT reason, I question the "fit for purpose" of Rust as a kernel programming lingo.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Headmaster

Re: Let's look at a few Rust facts ...

" they call write(2) to print an identical character sequence to the stdout file descriptor."

uh, wouldn't '2' be stderr? Not to pick nits or anything. icon for humor.

But yeah, this program shoudl be trivially small, only startup code for libc and call to 'main()', plus 'write()' call.

On FreeBSD, clang output was a 23128 byte binary. gcc8 however was 14160 bytes. I thought this was kind of interesting...

#include <unistd.h>

int main()

{

write(2, "hello world\n", 12);

}

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Let's look at a few Rust facts ...

I like your analysis! This reflects on what it *MIGHT* do to a kernel's footprint, too...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Rust pushes developers away

general observation: your more in-depth analysis seems to make a lot of sense, and is not inconsistent with my initial (gut) reaction to all of this.

"When I try to point out the above facts and how Rust at no point would pass the Steelman requirements, it quickly gets hammered home that there is no intellectual debate possible"

like another 'religious war' in the programming world? yeah, we NEEDED THAT, *snark*.

I should look for examples of THIS kind of thing on my own, to see if I can get info about more than one person's experience with this... and if it's common, it's worth bellowing about.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: Compiler Version

"I can't remember the last time I actually built a kernel"

Dynamic modules have made kernel building almost unnecessary, especially if you're not using a device with limited hardware resources where a custom kernel would greatly limit the footprint, etc.. [that used to be a somewhat geek-popular thing, make your kernel as tiny as possible].

I've recently built FreeBSD kernels, most recently a version 13 kernel for an RPi 3 - I wanted to see how well it would work (It worked very well, so I left it running for several weeks with a PostgreSQL database server running on it to test database performance on an RPi for a customer). But if you're doing kernel dev on a module, you need to re-build a lot [but don't clean all first, or it'll take hours - must build incrementally].

Seriously, though, if you're working on a kernel module you do kernel builds a LOT. But otherwise, no real need these days.

but if you're doing 'make menuconfig' every time in Linux - consider 'make oldconfig' - save time. You can hand-edit the config files, too, which I believe is easier once you have something close to what you want. Then edit the config file(s) and 'make oldconfig' etc.. [I used to do this a lot with wifi routers a while back]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

A lingo that is 'fit for purpose' for actual KERNEL programming

seeing as I've actually done kernel programming for Linux, FreeBSD, and even Windows (including bit-wiggle peripheral setup things and netfilter modules), I'd like to chime in with my significant concern that Rust inside the actual *kernel* is PROBABLY a bad idea. You need the low-level predictability and lightweight code of a language like C. Even C++ has been wholeheartedly rejected from being in the kernel, for similar reasons I might add.

My understanding of RUST suggests that this language is really _NOT_ well-suited towards the kind of programming that KERNEL programmers do. I'd like to suggest that a language like RUST might have a negative impact on kernel efficiency, memory footprint, and even reliability.

Remember: not everything running Linux has multiple cores, >32Gb of RAM and TB's of disk space available. Some machines might have a 4Mb flash (or even 2Mb) to load the kernel+userland from and still needs to run Linux. Saving that nickel on the BOM to reduce FLASH size down to "tiny" like that is an important feature. A lingo with too big of a footprint would RUIN this.

This is not to say there isn't room for what I'd call "Rust Support" in glibc (for example), which seems to be hinted at in an article linked to from this one. That would be fine with me, of course!

Though glibc and other things may actually be a part of (or closely associated with) the Linux kernel tree, this does not make it part of "the kernel". Still I couldn't see a Linux kernel ever NOT shipping with glibc.

Still, putting Rust code inside the actual kernel: It would (In My Bombastic Opinion) be WORSE for Linux than SystemD, Pulse Audio, or Wayland... combined!

You're testing them wrong: Whiteboard coding interviews are 'anti-women psychological stress examinations'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: but this can't be true

I would venture to guess that in the case where "whiteboard talking" is a part of the job description, such interviews might be needed. Back in the day I've heard it called "Chalk Talk" and, as I recall, in high school math contests, most of the 'Chalk Talk' contestants were FEMALE!

For many reasons I call B.S. on the claim that such things are deliberately trying to weed out female applicants. Maybe they just weed out APPLICANTS, regardless of any other characteristic, not necessarily picking the best candidate, either.

I can see the person who "talks the best game" is the one who 'wins' this kind of interview process. As for coding skills, most of the decent coders I've known wouldn't want to deal with this kind of B.S..

Linus Torvalds banishes masters, slaves and blacklists from the Linux kernel, starting now

bombastic bob Silver badge
Joke

Re: Wishy washy

BOFH and PFY?

More like BOFH and PHB. heh. (It's much clearer over here by the window...)(ok who parked that car there?)

now about all of that 'white space' in the documentation. I think we should start calling it 'shite space'.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Reply to Linus Torvalds

If certain phrases offends some people it is worth considering changing it.

And it's also worth telling overly-sensitive people that make demands upon others (to do work, change, whatever) where to go and "how far" etc. because *BEING* *BULLIED* *BY* *THEM* and then *CAVING* is actually *WORSE* since they *NEVER* *STOP* and *JUST* *DEMAND* *MORE*.

Now the article doesn't say, but if those "offended" people actually DID ALL OF THE WORK, then it's like "sure, whatever" and no harm just adopting the edits. They're just names for things.

And I suspect it _WAS_ this... and moving forward, it's nauseating, but I *SUPPOSE* 'new terms' could be used instead in the future. Whatever. At least there's no pile of extra WORK to do just to please people who are (in their own way) INTOLERANT.

DOWN side: I suspect that this is ONLY the beginning. *THEY* never *STOP*. *THEY* are never *APPEASED*. It *WILL* happen. Again. and Again. and AGAIN.

We shall see.

(so, WAS it the case that those who CARE about changing terms to be more 'inclusive' or whatever did the actual EDITING? I hope so)

IBM job ad calls for 12 years’ experience with Kubernetes – which is six years old

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: And so it ever was.

In the book 'What Color is your Parachute' (a book about job hunting and the hiring process in general) the author discusses many of the difficulties in dealing with HR and resumes and interviews and all of fthat. It's like everyone knows that the "wish list" in the job ad is _PROBABLY_ not the qualifications they need nor that of the person they'll eventually hire.

Adaptability and related experience are probably more valuable anyway than something 'too specific'.

But yeah if you can at least get to the interview, you'll probably get the job, if you're available, on-time, and present yourself as a generally competent employee who could just dive in and start going without a whole lot of supervision and direction. [at least for more senior I.T. roles which they must have been wanting to fill, by asking for 12 years' experience, etc.]

In any case, best to bypass H.R. whenever you can. This is also why I prefer working for smaller companies (as a contractor). Not only are you more likely to talk to the hiring manager, they're more interested in "get it done" types because they don't have money to waste on bureaucracy...

Summary: the ad is a *GUIDELINE* and a *WISH LIST* that should filter out the number of applications they get, down to a reasonable number that untrained H.R. employees can screen by using a list of key words and tricky phrases... but I suspect that all too often it would keep "the right person" from applying.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: And so it ever was.

And I thought _I_ was Captain Obvious!

China’s preferred Linux distro trumpets Arm benchmark results

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: Remind me

with the way the China communist government treats their own people, it will be a hard sell to the rest of the world that there is no secret "management engine" type of hidden security hole built right in. it's the same reason why people aren't trusting them for 5G.

I'd also like to know whether or not they are ACTUALLY COMPLYING WITH THE GPL for their own Linux version...

Android 11 will let users stop device-makers from killing background apps, says Google

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: Android 9 is unusable

I think you can still purchase simple ARM-based Linux laptops for inexpensive prices. I did that a few years ago to produce a couple of L-boxen that were used to program hardware devices during manufacturing. Set them up with a "click me" icon basically. useful because they were heap and had screens, and techs could just mouse-click the button... and it was WAY cheaper than building a custom piece of hardware to do the same thing.

I'm pretty sure you can still find ones like that, of the 'netbook' variety. Might have to install a different distro, though, but nothing too difficult (the netbooks I got came with a simple console-only Linux distro). Devuan/Mate would be my choice.

Microsoft to pull support for PHP: Version 8? Exterminate, more like...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

yeah, so I wonder what "Extend" is to be offered in lieu of PHP 8...

I fear "P#"... or I guess that would be Micros~1.P#

Micros~1 had IIS back in the day, and it was (in some ways) PHP-like [basically the same concept of server-side dynamic content achieved by marking up the source in a way that both ran code AND served up HTML content directly from that source], but I didn't see a lot of adoption of IIS back in the day when it was actually relevant, whereas PHP had a LOT of web sites using it (so it won the competition). (I know _I_ do, because it's often the fast sensible solution to excessive/unneessary client-side script, for starters).

So based on the subtitle of the article, when does Micros~1 "Extend", and then "Extinguish" PHP?

Looks like "Extinguish" is planned for 2022. Hold onto you programs, the "Extend" is forthcoming, I do not doubt it!

Asia’s internet registry APNIC finds about 50 million unused IPv4 addresses behind the sofa

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Wont someone think of the routing table?

if you already have an IPv6, maybe to get the IPv4 you set up a PPPoE (or other) kind of solution, then tunnel directly into the correct router via IPv6, Voila! (that way you won't need /30 netblocks just to get one usable IPv4 address, as I've seen happen in the past).

.NET Core: Still a Microsoft platform thing despite more than five years open source

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

"I always though our bombastic bob is way over the top when it comes to Win10 and MS software. He is not."

Welcome aboard!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

porting the ".Not" GUI stuff to use X11 on Linux and the BSDs would actually make more sense. Anyone willing to do THAT?

*crickets*

OpenJDK (etc.) on the other hand, seems to work pretty well there.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: The problem as I see it

I think you might want to look at The TIOBE Index before making decisions on what programming lingos to master... most reliable source In My Bombastic Opinion.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: What's up with non-.NET developers thinking?

you're "not wrong".

According to the TIOBE index, which confirms the "5th pace" ranking for July 2020's lingo popularity, C-pound is statistically tied with VB in lingo popularity at 5.25%. C is at 16.1%, having swapped places with Java again (15.1%) as the #1 and #2 lingos, holding steady with this throughout the 21st century.

Here's the thing: when you look at TIOBE's index, you see the top 3 lingos C, Java, Python. C++ is in 4th place and is really just C on steroids, for the most part. And so you say "where do I focus my efforts on mastering programming lingos" and it seems to ME you spend it on the TOP 4 and ignore C-pound.

So, do I spend ALL of my time "learning" and NOT get paid to do work? Do I spend all of my 'at work' time NOT being productive with things that make/save money for the company? How much spare time must I devote to "learn new/shiny lingo of the week"?

When C-pound first came out I used the wizards to generate a 'hello world' type of project. I was so horrified with the results I never looked at it again unless I had no other choice... THAT and being aware it didn't even compile to NATIVE CODE (back then; I think it does, now). The whole idea that it should be like Java and create a P-code [and ALSO require that monolithic umbrella-lib known as ".Net" to run, with shades of VB incompatibilities and installer nightmares from the 90's rapidly running through my head] I made the sign of a cross with my fingers, and commanded it to go straight back to the fiery depths from whence it came...

and even with mono, which evolved (sorta) into ".Not Core", I'm not convinced.

C-pound is like an undead horse, that's been beaten so hard it's no longer dead, it's undead. And therefore it will NEVER DIE... in a creepy not-very-nice kind of way.

MariaDB inhales $25m. 'People tried to get away with simpler' but now there's a 'relational renaissance,' says open-source biz chief

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

NoSQL vs SQL - seriously, it's based on the need

I've done both the 'simple text file' method AND SQL databases for decades. It's really all based on the need.

If you have a bunch of text data, you can often use simple command line tools and shell scripts. Sometimes that makes the most sense. I've done a lot of analysis on data like that.

Sometimes the SQL utility can be used to 'spit out' the columns of data that another tool can crunch to provide charts, etc. and now you have a 'hybrid' solution that is controlled with a shell script or PHP backend.

It's all based on what the needs are. Having to pick one or the other isn't very creative.

(My preference is PostgreSQL though, for the SQL side)

Main point, of course, is that one or the other solution isn't "superior", just different.

(the most fun solution I did, multiple times in fact, was to create a series of time-based 3D charts from x,y,z text data using gnuplot, then string them together into a video using mencoder's "bunch of jpegs" feature, and play the video to watch the changes in the chart output over time. Built with shell scripts. at the end I added background music to the video to make it more fun. However, watching the video led me to discover a software bug in how the IMU data was being interpreted. Who knew?)

A bad day in New Zealand: Rocket Lab's 13th mission ends in failure

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

4th of July fireworks

Too many displays were canceled this year. Gotta get our fireworks somehow...

When Facebook says you're not a good 'culture fit', it means you're not White or Asian enough – complaint

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Looking for ‘cultural fit' in recruitment process = discrimination-by-design

"The ‘cultural fit’ thing is the codeword for discrimination. This is how it happens."

Right, though many of the other claims could be just made up B.S., this one thing sticks out like something I'd be nauseated to have to deal with. I'm glad I don't work for F.B. as I'd never "fit' in their "culture" at all. (such a touchy-feely nauseating term, "culture-fit" - makes me wanna hurl).

If that term is FOR REAL as part of their overall H.R. philosophy, it sounds like the basis for an entire SERIES of discrimination lawsuits.

You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Fujitsu tells 80,000 of its Japan employees: From now on, you work remotely

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

all of the houses I've seen in Japan, at least middle and upper-middle class, are very much like what you'd find in California. Sure, the land is expensive, but the house will reflect that and have many rooms. An office room, just like a Californian's house, is not unreasonable. In fact, comparing Japan housing (cost and appearance) to California is probably a pretty close approximation...

though I haven't been to Japan since the 80's, everything I've read seems to confirm it.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Smart Management

"hot deaski9ng" ? yeah, as a contractor, I do that sometimes. Does not bother me. Normally I end up bringing in my own gear, then they see me using it more productively, and will ultlimately provide me with tools that actually do the job [so I bring the PC box home, put Devuan on it, bring it back all set up and ready to go, with maybe an hour of bnillable time and the rest just letting it cook in the background)

But anyway, yeah - hot-desking. Not such a bad thing, I'd say. You're in 1 day a week? What about all of those train commuters you weren't having to social distance from...

(we're talking Japan but I've done the commute train thing, too, when needed, in Southern California, where you typically live 30 minutes from where you work if you drive - at least on a 1 hour train ride you can sleep)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: Smart Management

all of what you said, plus (in many cases) just cutting back on the otherwise wasted commute time. Once people get used to the self-discipline needed to work from home (ok right now I still owe my client a couple of hours for today, better get back to it) the flexibility along with practicality for most things makes total sense.

If *ANY* *GOOD* can come out of this *THING* (that angers the HELL out of me), the work-from-home trend *IS* *IT*.

My last true I.T. job was working for Fujitsu Systems of America. They built cash registers and bank ATMs and things like that. I was an I.T. guy (contractor) hired to deal with the backlog of work requests for custom reporting. I got them all done, by doing the easiest first, then going around and talking to the people who did the requests to find out what they REALLY wanted. H.R. hated me, of course, until I did a custom job for them, then they quieted up and left me alone. And after that this one corporate guy from Japan hung around a LOT to get me to do custom reports and analyses, which of course I did. All in all I think Fuji was a really good corporation to work for, and my reason for leaving was that I was going into businss for myself with a partner to produce our own software, which almost worked, and then I eventually bought the corporation and now use it for doing contract development work (electronics _and_ software/firmware). OK so it wasn't that profitable but it's been fun.

And isn't that the point, "fun" ???

So go for it, Fujitsu - make this work, lead the way!

Analogue radio given 10-year stay of execution as the UK U-turns on DAB digital future

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: The future is behind you ....

here in the USA we have the same broadcast bands for AM and FMthat we've had for DECADES, running at 540khz to 1600Khz for AM, and 87.9Mhz to 108.1Mhz for FM (with the lower FM bands reserved for public broadcasting and college stations, etc. - my favorite is on 88.1Mhz, KSDS, which plays 'straight ahead' jazz, run by the local city college, and has a web page you can listen on if you want). And it's highly unlikely that digital radio will replace these broadcast bands in the USA, for many of the same reasons mentioned in the article.

Incidentally, you can hear broadcast AM at night over thousands of miles, depending on where you are.

It's also worth pointing out that you can build an emergency AM radio out of a needle and a razorblade if you happen to have some crystal headphones. Google it, yeah. Surprise!

So there's one other, perhaps less obvious, advantage to keeping the AM band at least: National Civil Defense

The one thing that a post-apoalyptic world will need is the ability to communicate again, and if (let's say an EMP) damages all of the hi-tech radio gear, and we're stuck with Fleming's technology or even Marconi's, at .least those of us who have working (simple) receivers that for some reason weren't destroyed by EMP would still be able to listen in. So if for no other reason, keeping the AM band for talk, news, and emergencies is a good idea.

UN warns of global e-waste wave as amount of gadgets dumped jumps 21% in 5 years

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Blame...

Well, if batteries were easy to replace in Apple gear, a LOT of this wouldn't be a problem...

Also, in San Diego County we have a functional recycling program. In general it pays for itself. And the amount of recoverable rare metals from ground up electronics can be significant. Even lithium, from batteries, is a semi-rare element. But a bit more convenience would be nice [if I could toss an old phone into the 'blue can' for example]. Still, the last "bring your old electronics here" event at a local high school got several boxes from me. Boneyard cleanout, yeah.

When recycling is done right, it's a) convenient as hell, b) at least breaks even on the sale of recyclable materials. Do those two things, and the problem should solve itself.

I was screwed over by Cisco managers who enforced India's caste hierarchy on me in US HQ, claims engineer

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: "We have robust processes"

With my stupid ideas of salary tied to what the employee brings to the company, I would probably bankrupt every multi-billion international corporation in a month.

This kind of thinking (i.e. salary tied to what the employee brings to the company) seems to work well for smaller companies. They can't afford to become top-heavy bureaucracies with internal power struggles and territorial disputes. So they do what YOU suggest, instead...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

You DO have to assume the possibility that it's a bogus lawsuit. However, if it is NOT bogus, then this guy NEEDS to win. We can't have this kind of (alleged) discrimination happening in a workplace.

Happy privacy action day in California: If you don't have 'Do not sell my information' in your website footer, you need to read this story right now

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Of course there is an alternative

after reading the article, I went ahead and put a footer on the main page for my company web site that basically says I don/'t collect, store, nor sell personal data. Hopefully good enough.

Microsoft takes tweaking tongs to Windows 10's Start Menu once again

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Clearly I've missed something but

"So what's the point of shifting everything around into a place that's still a Control Panelly sort of space?"

It's about the CONTROL, and not the "Panel" we're used to (for windows 7 holdouts, anyway). Micros~1 will FORCE YOU to like "Settings" by MAKING you use it!

(it's kinda like holding your dog's nose in whatever it was he did that you do not like. He probably won't get the message, other than "you are bigger than me and can do this")

Details of Beijing's new Hong Kong security law signal end to more than two decades of autonomy

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Ah yes, the old "Endangering National Security" line

Once people have tasted freedom, taking it away will result in a HUGE backlash.

'Perestroika' backfired for the USSR, but for a slightly different reason. When USSR-ians got a taste of capitalism and freedom, they wanted MORE, IMMEDIATELY. HK already had this to some extent, and now way LESS. Taking what little freedom they had away like that isn't going to have good consequences.

I expect a LOT of China's citizens quietly rebelling, in subtle yet significant ways, so as not to be the nail that sticks out that gets the hammer. And in HK, I expect it to get _EVEN_ _LOUDER_. At some point, you just "press F-it". Something about not being able to govern against the will of the people, and when there's NO HOPE and nothing left that has not already been taken away, many will "press F-it" and do what desperate people do... reminding us of Tiananmen Square.

'It's really hard to find maintainers...' Linus Torvalds ponders the future of Linux

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: The next generation will attempt to port the kernel to Javascript...

" it will be a big job to move to another language; although this task might attract developers who aren't interested in being maintainers."

Before creating and jumping onto a new bandwagon, a bit of recent history: Kotlin uptake isn't happening at the rates that Google might want, for Android development, and it is ALSO important to keep your existing staff from quitting over having to spend month(s) re-learning and _ESSENTIALLY_ becoming like N00Bs again for a while...

Yes. I'm CONFIDENT it is true: Experienced coders like the results of being experienced, knowing what the code should look like, avoiding what would otherwise be the drudgery of going over insignificant details and nuances of "new shiny" lingo, and getting FREQUENTLY OUTRAGED at perceived UNNECESSARY errors and warnings. Those tedious 'learn new instead of using experience' things while STILL getting the fixes and new features done on time keep programming from being *fun*... and if it's not *fun*, and you are volunteering, you tend to *QUIT*.

Learning is fun if you're NOT under the gun. Taking a month (or more) off from anything resembling productivity and getting things accomplished... NO THANK YOU!

So if Java coders (for Android) are holding back on a switch to Kotlin, even for NEW projects, maybe not such a good idea to switch from C to Rust.

(being old enough, I have seen a lot of "new shiny" lingo hype, most of which sputtered and flamed out quickly, and the TIOBE index is FULL of them)

Linux Mint 20 isn't exactly bursting with freshness but, hey, there's kernel 5.4 and it's a long-term support release

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Form or function?

[there] "isn't anything more significant that would entice me to upgrade."

stability and reliability would be reasons, but weren't mentioned (or I missed it).

LTS on its own _might_ be a reason.

Otherwise, "upgrades/updates are highly overrated" (too much feature creep).

Not sure why they aren't building the chrome package themselves, or simply using Debian's. In fact, maybe they can just ask Ubunto nicely for a copy of the build environment, tweek out the package manager install, and go from there... ?

Hey, Boeing. Don't celebrate your first post-grounding 737 Max test flight too hard. You just lost another big contract

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

when it comes to credit cards, in the USA credit sales can be reversed within 30 days [as I recall]. Debit cards can NOT, however (which is why I use no debit cards online). in the EU and UK I understand that there's more of an "all sales are final" approach, but I'm not that familiar. Still I think it's a function of the banking laws as to whether a 'charge back' or 'reversal' is even possible. An associate of mine worked in the banking industry and explained it to me a few years back, but I'm certainly no expert, IANAL, YMMV, and all that. So yeah check your local banking laws to see what rights you have for getting stiffed on payments without goods delivered...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: One question

"The safety of people should come a long way before any profit."

This is pretty much the principal that the FAA and the airline industry in general lives by.

As a result, if a plane has a design problem, or if any aircraft crashes for ANY reason, it's HUGE news and a lot of effort goes into finding out WHY and then doing something about it to keep it from happening AGAIN. End result, best safety record EVAR.

So I'd say the answer to your question is 'yes'. (I'm pretty confident the 737 Max will end up with a much better safety record than anything else on the planet, simply so that Boeing can compensate for their complete screwup and re-prove themselves to the world)

Stinker, emailer, trawler, spy: How an engineer stole top US chip designs, smuggled them to China to set up a rival fab

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: So what about Chinese non-nationals?

yeah, none of these espionage things have anything to do with race (according to Captain Obvious).

it has everything to do with loyalty, and being willing to protect national interests.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Cue the...

*facepalm*