Posts by bombastic bob

Google Nest server outage leaves US, European smart homes acting dumb

"The Cloud" is highly overrated

"all eggs" "one basket"

yeah, THAT'll work well, right? Look at how much we save in baskets!!!

nevermind if multiple servers are involved, it STILL b0rked and went TITSUP for a while...

GitHub restores DMCA-hit youtube-dl code repo after source patched to counter RIAA's takedown demand

Re: Ha!

as a musician, I object to RIAA's monopolistic dominance in music distribution, their marketing and royalty policies that harm musicians by promoting CRAP at the expense of royalties to GOOD musicians, and their general attitude towards their CUSTOMERS (content consumers). What they did to used CD purchases, for example, should be CRIMINAL.

And worthy of mention, RIAA hall of shame:

* Smashing Pumpkins

* Prince (who had to change his name for a while)

* The Beatles (why they formed Apple and couldn't perform old hits)

* Salt-N-Pepa

(and MANY, many others who've had horrible contracts, even leading to bankruptcy)

Re: What comes next is most interesting

Hopefully RIAA will sod off for a bit

unlikely. they seem to act as if every web site is Napster, and every content consumer is ripping them off or something.

I have one suggestion to RIAA: stop force-marketing CRAP at inflated prices, and if it's good, affordable, AND available for purchase, people WILL pay for it. Suing everyone for revenue is a BAD model, kinda like patent trolling...

Re: Youtube

maybe it was the content of the speeches, and the music was simply "an excuse"... ?

Re: Youtube

and whenever you want video quality that exceeds your bandwidth, or want to play it more than once, the download method makes more sense.

KDE maintainers speak on why it is worth looking beyond GNOME

Re: Notsomuch.

As I recall, earlier CentOS had an option for Mate... when was this taken away???

Re: The "Problem" with Linux

but.. but... but... KDE is NOW all 2D FLATTY FLATSO, at least from what I have seen.

At least Mate (based on GTK 2 last I checked) CAN have *Nice* 3D Skeuomorphic and colors, rather than the 2D FLATTY of Chromium, Australis, and Win-10-nic. Similarly, Cinnamon (which, as I understand, uses GTK 3).

Whatever Gnome is doing nowadays, Pfftt.

Python swallows Java to become second-most popular programming language... according to this index

Re: Sin tax

If I may ask, what is it about python that irks you?

'pip' and python environments and _EVERYTHING_ surrounding or involved with it...

THAT and the non-backward-compatible changes from 2.x to 3.x

Re: Sin tax

I use the '?:' syntax frequently enough. If you put them into the arguments passed to 'printf()' you can adjust output based on a value, like:

printf("You answered %s\n", (const char *)(bYesNo != 0 ? "Yes" : "No"));

(but you kinda need to force some parens and type casting in there so certain compilers won't gripe nor get it wrong)

when working with a microcontroller, having ONLY A SINGLE FORMAT STRING for multiple possible outputs saves NVRAM. But of course, YMMV and you probably want to test all possible refactor possibilities before settling for the one with the smallest footprint.

Re: "Why not? K&R is ~250 pages long"

The biggest source of bugs in today's bug ridden software is total reliance on the high level of abstraction imposed by most currently used languages.

'Sauce' on that? Not disagreeing, just curious...

I wouldn't necessarily use 'source of bugs' but rather "source of inefficiencies and bad coding practices".

After having to clean up a DJango web service, by having it invoke some C language utilities to do the REAL work (and getting 10:1 performance benefits as a result, saving MINUTES of 'wait for it to finish' data transfer time for end-users), I can surely sympathize.

Re: Sin tax

Python is magnitudes faster to build clean code that works.

depends on what you're doing. Although I've written sample code in python for things _LIKE_ serial comms demo programs that control a device via USB serial, mostly from the likelihood that doing so would be understandable by the intended audience, I wouldn't use that language to develop anything BEYOND a simple demo, MOSTLY because the handling of binary structures and binary data in general is PATHETIC in Python.

Additionally, the handling of arrays (in general) is ALSO PATHETIC in Python. I suppose the need for binary structure packing as well as array'd data (in general) is kinda the same basic problem...

"Clean code that works" - if your "clean code" is "slap these pre-written 3rd party objects together with 'glue' to become 'an app'", then maybe. As for me I'd rather have COMPLETE CONTROL over EVERY aspect of the code, particularly for high reliability things. No 'midnight phone call' or 'angry customer' for anything _I_ write. (it's also why I like to statically link the installed binaries, even for Linux)

New lawsuit: Why do Android phones mysteriously exchange 260MB a month with Google via cellular data when they're not even in use?

Re: someone's getting ripped off

This is theft of your bandwidth.

and the only TRUE remedy includes the ability to TURN THIS *CRAP* OFF!!!

When sci-fact beats sci-fi: Echoes of exploding stars' final cries may be trapped in the rings of trees on Earth

Re: Sounds plausible

realistically, all dating methods include assumptions. Using tree ring C14 variations to help calibrate the others is only going to make it more accurate, when results from various methods converge in a repeatable manner [once calibrated correctly].

Currently the 'isotopic decay' methods are all subject to various errors, centering around "what is the amount of material at the beginning of the decay chain". Until we have a way of projecting that backwards that is accurately determined based on converging "date determination" results, we'll just have to assume it's all "just a guess".

There is a layer in the rocks, however, at the end of the cretaceous period if I remember correctly (verified, K-T boundary), that is said to mark the period where the meteor that allegedly killed the dinosaurs allegedly formed the gulf of Mexico and caused a multi-year darkening of the skies... so that event is probably in trees as well, fossilized ones at any rate. Apparently there are materials, isotopes, and structures in that layer that coroborate something _LIKE_ a meteor strike happening and causing a world-wide catastrophe.

In any case, corroborating tree ring info in fossil trees might be a cool thing to find. OK 60-something million year old tree fossils, but still... who knows what we might find if we look for it?

Re: Sounds plausible

13.000 year old tree rings...

fossils maybe? [it could happen...]

This topic also implies the use of various dating methods that include carbon 14 dating. And using tree rings to catalog the variations in C14 for a given year just might help calibrate this dating method in ways that greatly improves its accuracy by (essentially) data modeling the "chaotic" component and creating 'fingerprints' (of sorts) for a particular group of years.

Also reminds me of that Dr. Who episode where the earth was covered in forest for a day or so...

123 Bork? Six-day DNS record-edit outage at domain name flinger 123 Reg enrages users

From the article: Outbound domain transfers do seem to be working

a feature that is, no doubt, being used quite a bit...

I don't have either of the registrars that I use managing anything but the registered domain. The actual DNS is either done by the ISP providing the web site stuff, or by me. Bind is NOT hard.

rndc freeze

delete the transaction file for the zone

edit the zone file using your favorite text editor (pluma, ee, nano, whatever)

rndc thaw

no problem

(also need to set up the DHCP hooks for on-demand naming by DHCP clients, but that's not hard either, using isc's DHCP server)

as for the registered domain name, no problems with either verisign or godaddy. Ok maybe I pay more, but sometimes you get what you pay for.

San Francisco approves 'CEO tax', hopes to extract up to $140m a year from corps with wide exec-staff salary gap

The tax is for the greater good POLITICIANS to BUY VOTES with

Fixed it for ya

(ok not in the same context but I could not resist)

Re: String 'em up!

more than likely they'll move OUT of San Francisco within the year.

I hear other staes like Florida and Texas have corporate friendliness, and MUCH lower cost of living.

Think about it: if you're NOT being taxed at that 'progressive' (read: punitive) rate and your cost of living is HALF of what it was, you could literally AFFORD to be paid 1/3 or even 1/4 of what you WERE being paid, and still live JUST as well as you did before (possibly BETTER). Just convert somve of that wage pay to stock options or 401k or something ELSE that's not immediately taxable, and move to one of THOSE places, and I bet you'll see corporate bottom lines improve AND the CEOs be just as "wealthy" in their lifestyle.

Or you can pay all of your wages in tax, demand a compensating raise, and watch employees get laid off, just for the "privilege" of a San Francisco corporate address...

CERT/CC: 'Sensational' bug names spark fear, hype – so we'll give flaws our own labels... like Suggestive Bunny

how about "naughty bits" ?

What they've come up with already sounds exactly like a list of SCI codewords.

or Ubuntu releases

Google reCAPTCHA service under the microscope: Questions raised over privacy promises, cookie use

Re: Clear cookies -- daily

WARNING: do not execute these commands until you understand what they do...

rm -rf ~/.cache/chromium/Default/*

rm -rf ~/.config/chromium/*

This also deletes preferences. you may still find it useful. If you want to KEEP your preferences, then you should do this first, then reopen chrome, set your preferences, and check the date/times on the files to see which ones you should keep

Just deleting the cache is not enough. SOME things, like those cookies you mention, reside "ELSEWHERE". You need to figure out which files/dirs CAN be removed, and remove them. I use a script with 30+ lines in it. Rather than post here, you can probably figure out which files need keeping, and delete the rest. No harm to chrome, it just returns to default if you delete a config file.

the Google monster is having trouble tracking me with my choice of VPN, browser and add-ons.

It's been my observation that when I do the following:

* use chromium

* erase ALL history in an anal retentive way before I go someplace that uses CAPTCHA

The CAPTCHA puzzles are SIMPLER, and more frequently I just get a checkbox.

Thought I might mention that...

In most cases, I only have to click a checkbox marked I am not a robot;

My experience has demonstrated that CAPTCHA does NOT like you to use non-chromium browsers.

* Nearly every time I use firefox, I have trouble with as many as half of the captchas

* Specifically, the captchas that involve a slow fade-out and slow-fade in of a picture you might need to click because of an object on it *ALWAYS* *FAIL* whenever I use Firefox. This has been going on (sometimes worse, sometimes just bad) for ABOUT A YEAR now.

* There does NOT seem to be any kind of reasonable feedback or customer service contact on this [I have tried, in one case an e-mail address]

* Using FreeBSD and/or Firefox should _NOT_ make you "suspect" nor cause you to get "nothing but the hard ones that require a screen magnifier to solve and involve more than 2 'next/verify' buttons"

* NOT having "the most bleeding edge browser" should _NOT_ make you "suspect" [and it should STILL WORK PROPERLY]

* rejecting 3rd party cookies or setting 'private browsing mode' should NOT make you "suspect"

I have seen government services for the state of California actually USE CAPTCHA which is EXTREMELY ANNOYING because of this sort of thing.

I have also been waiting for a chance to RANT about this where someone else might actually CONFIRM it independently. I do frequent a particular web site that uses captcha to control user posts to (try to) prevent abuse. So I'm basically FORCED to USE CHROMIUM for this.

(but I have great hacks in place to prevent everything I do from being tracked by "that one browser" that doesn't have noscript or cookie blocking or private browsing or any OTHER mitigating 'thing' and I use a script to DUMP ALL HISTORY which is comprehensive and seems to work just fine...)

GitHub warns devs face ban if they fork DMCA'd YouTube download tool... while hinting how to beat the RIAA

Re: Quick way round

what if you only want to see a 720p version and do NOT want to live-stream with stutterage and skippage because your win-10-nic machines are UPGRADING at the moment and stealing ALL of the bandwidth???

yeah, "embed" player is PART! OF! THE! PROBLEM!!!

Re: Why is such a tool needed?

Shirley wget or curl already does a more than adequate job?

youtube-dl de-obfuscates the actual video URLs, downloads higher resolution video than your connection might be capable of live-streaming, AND creates a convenient '.mkv' out of it all [in most cases]. It ALSO does NOT require a java player to view the videos, so for SECURITY, it is MORE than ideal.

The problem is that youtube and the other video sites are busy TRYING TO OUTWIT IT, by changing things frequently, like a moving target. Last week thd tool worked. Next week it MAY NOT. and GOOD LUCK finding out what URL the video is REALLY on without excess MANUAL EFFORT.

This is why the script is SO BRILLIANT and SO POPULAR.

Youtube should just have a "download" button anyway.

Re: Well, no problem, I'm going to rip off GitHub code for my own use....

all we need is ANOTHER LOCATION for the youtube-dl code, maybe somewhere in Finland... or put the tarball on USENET

(why these cloudy repo sites would be so "essential" is beyond me)

And what's to stop OTHER web sites around the world from hosting a mirror? All youtube-dl makers (I use this script myself, so I don't have to watch skippy video) need to do is post a set of links and a set of hashes (along with file size) to verify the thing, and voila! It's not that large anyway (~1.7Mb uncompressed) and consists of a SINGLE python program.

So a paste to USENET might be the easiest way to do it. Now I'll need to subscribe to some of the 'binary' groups

Windows kernel vulnerability disclosed by Google's Project Zero after bug exploited in the wild by hackers

Re: Really?

what does use cryptography by default

probably anything involving crypto API, from web browsers and e-mail to domain logins and file sharing. But that's just a guess on my part.

Fair bet I won't get a patch for Windows 7 either. I'd like something I could manually install, please, rather than getting mandatory updates enabled via "windows update".

X.Org is now pretty much an ex-org: Maintainer declares the open-source windowing system largely abandoned

Re: obXKCD

I still edit it occasionally. Sometimes, for some reason, the NVidia card gets assigned a different bus ID.

Re: I sure hope X.Org doesn't die off yet

No need for full-quote of your post. BIG thumbs up!

XWayland stacked on Wayland

How to actually make something like this WORK... (but will the alleged CHILDREN working on the Wayland project ever consider such a reasonable proposal from an OLD FART like me?)

* XServer uses X.org implementation "as-is" running like a subsystem layer [my read-up on XWayland just now suggests it is not really like this at all]

* XServer runs independently, NOT invoked by Wayland (so you can have it listen on a TCP socket, just like always, NOT like XWayland currently is, if I read it correctly)

* X11 Video driver and glx and shared memory extensions do the actual work, implemented by X.org as a video driver, and not necessarily a part of Wayland [but with X11 hooks in Wayland as needed]

* OpenGL lib similar to what NVidia does, that does more direct video things at a low level, so you get equal [and possibly better] performance with X11.

* XVideo hooks via the X11 video driver.

This would essentially be 'wayland as a soft video driver'. It would support remote X11, and existing X11 applications without modification. It would essentially use the SAME X.org server code.

But here's what it would NOT do: It would NOT force EVERYONE ELSE to CHANGE, thereby giving up tried/true for the NEW SHINY, sorta like as described in [mentioned again] Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority".

Re: The power of open-source

Get rid of the ancient cruft and add new features, optimising as you go.

I'm not sure there's a LOT of "ancient cruft" there. Some of that still has use, especially for running a GUI application on an embedded system (let's say something in the 100's of Mhz clock frequency ballpark) across a network (let's say a WiFi G network with lots of interference) and still get reasonable UI performance in which the application is still "usable". not like you're playing videos or anything...

I like to think of that "ancient cruft" as "well tested bug-free code".

X11 has a LOT of legacy stuff in it, which I expect is NOT used all that often (except x sample applications like xclock etc.). And better docs for the more recent extensions would be nice, like glx, shared memory extensions, and so on...

Freetype and related stuff are actually add-on libraries.

THAT being said, it is NO excuse to go and ABANDON a working system for "something that more resembles the way Micros~1 does it" like WAYLAND, *ESPECIALLY* when you *LOSE* *CAPABILITIES* that are EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!!! You know, like the 'DISPLAY' environment variable and REMOTE X server support.

/me uses pluma on an RPi to edit files NEARLY on a daily basis for a major client of mine, using 'DISPLAY' to edit source files on a Linux workstation across the network, often WIRELESSLY. It's a touch screen system, like so many others out there i bet. NO WAY could I do editing on that touch screen, either, and it needs to have the application RUNNING ON THE TOUCH SCREEN to test the code I'm working on. I can't imagine the HORRIBLE INCONVENIENCE AND SLOWDOWN that a LACK of remote X11 capability would cause...

(yeah NOBODY's doing that remote X server thing... right? What, HALF the people who read El Reg do that at least OCCASIONALLY? That sounds about right)

Re: Nobody likes X11

X11 side - (for the clipboard)

Not that hard, and a bit more flexible than it is in the windows world. In theory, within the X11 world, you can store multiple data types on the clipboard (each with its own owner), and not "just one thing" (they don't even have to be for the same object or application, etc.). Additionally it's really not all that hard to make use of in the X11 world. Many clipboard APIs and libraries exist for just about every toolkit I'm aware of. It's more or less a "solved problem" with a lot of sample code available.

I use a background thread and some sync objects (in my own toolkit) to make it appear to work synchronously from the main thread. Copy/Pasta performance is pretty good. The UI is basically seamless, no stuttering or weirdness. code is simple (synchronous call similar to Win32 API in that regard) with the toolkit doing the async stuff in its own thread as needed.

There is a nice command line example 'xclip' that's not all that hard to follow, which lets you access the clipboard from the command line. So if you need clip functionality and are NOT using a toolkit (or are writing your own), this is likely to be very useful to you (it was for me, a long time ago):

https://github.com/astrand/xclip

Question: why abandon something that works and is in long term maintenance mode?

2nd Question: who here has NOT read Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority" ?

Re: Then there's running an X session remotely.....

I'm still not clear how this is supposed to be accomplished in the new spiffy Wayland-only world.

It's not. Wayland becomes a way of FORCING LINUX USERS INTO A MS WINDOWS MODEL, just like systemd and "other Poettering things"

And, according to the article, X.org is *HARDLY* ABANDONWARE. Last commit a few hours ago, right?

If they need more people to keep X.org alive, I'll volunteer MYSELF.

But... I will *NOT* be *FORCED* into *WAYLAND* and *LOSE* the *ONE* *BEST* *FEATURE* of X11 protocol, the use of the DISPLAY environment variable to run on a REMOTE desktop [or the same one, with a different user context].

that word - "modern". Hey RED HAT, I do NOT think that word means what YOU think it means!

Node.js 15: What's new, what's coming, and keeping pace with Deno. 'We're not going to reinvent' module ecosystem

an application that has been stable for years might now fall over

When I read "an application that has been stable for years might now fall over" it just reminds me of the *KINDS* of unintended consequences these "developers" (with real-world blinders firmly in place) "feature creep" into things that have a large user base, only to "not give a crap" when things ULTIMATELY DO FALL OVER.

This is why I will *NEVER* do an application that depends on "the latest bleeding edge version" of something *LIKE* Node.js

We have seen this sort of thing from dependent libs at least a FEW times, particularly when developers capriciously "decide" to withdraw their content, out of spite or malicious intent, doesn't matter, same result.

The C language was originally set up to fail gracefully, which is a major reason why it's ideal for kernel development. In a typical kernel "thing" you already test for error conditions BEFORE you work with something. You force unused pointers and structures to a default state (typically 0 or NULL), and check for it at specific points where it matters. Errors become something you TEST for, and NOT something that CRASHES things.

Back in the day, the FRUSTRATION of a single line of code ending your run in "?Something error at line 500" is what (most likely) drove this feature in C. Also consider the "Unhandled Application Exception" box in Windows versions before 3.1 . That infamous UAE caused SO much frustration, it HAD to be dealt with.

Now Node.js has its OWN version of "Unhandled Application Exception" simply because what was once a warning that COULD BE IGNORED, is *NOW* a FATAL END OF THE UNIVERSE *ERROR*.

Thanks for that, Node.js "developers".

NSA: We've learned our lesson after foreign spies used one of our crypto backdoors – but we can't say how exactly

Re: How do you avoid US spy gear, it is everywhere.

it's why back doors themselves should NEVER be used. Classic example here, in which OTHERS have discovered the keys, and the existence of the back doors has been revealed, defeating their very purpose and compromising EVERYTHING gummints were attempting to use them for.

They need to do REAL investigating. You know, like the OLD days.

Open source may provide a perfect solution to this. How about hardened linux router software that's 100% open source that you can subsequently load onto Cisco's hardware and thereby ELIMINATE the problem? Peer review would find any back doors. Maybe Linus could make it happen?

SNAFU: Clairvoyant train brings warning of what was coming down the line for 2020

Re: My Money is on

this is why I search for profanities in debug and warning messages before it gets shipped to a customer

Hackers rummaged about in Finnish psychotherapy clinic – now patients extorted with public data dump threats

Re: encryption

I think there should be a law that says ALL personal information has to be stored encrypted and the encryption keys stored seperately.

Usually this is accomplished through high profile lawsuits for when people fail to do it voluntarily...

(so I have my doubts whether a law would make a difference)

A general "data protection" regulation (assuming it does not already exist) MIGHT help, but I expect that one (or more) already exists by now.

Re: Wonderful...

amazingly enough, criminals think like criminals, and are often arrogant and brazenly open in their defiance of the law.

this is who we're dealing with: criminals. laws discourage more honest people from misbehaving.

criminals need to be INCARCERATED.

Pakistan calls on Facebook to extend holocaust denial ban into Islamophobia crackdown

behaving like religious zealots by engaging in murder, terrorism, etc. is NOT justified, explained, nor even lessened in severity by mentioning the bad behavior of bad acting people from hundreds of years ago.

What a sour start to a Monday.

not so much any more. Thanks for the sanity.

'This was bigger than GNOME and bigger than just this case.' GNOME Foundation exec director talks patent trolls and much, much more

you sure some of them aren't running one of the BSDs or a commercial UNIX or Solaris variant?

Still they are all POSIX OSs though, and that's really the point I think.

Move to Wayland?

Migrating to Wayland - why are they doing this again? I bet it's the same justification as it was for the "new" interface of Gnome 3 [which broke the panels in my opinion, on several levels] and so on? And the major changes to the gedit user interface (making it harder to work with)? Just because it is *NEW* ?

Here are some GOOD reasons to make SURE they do NOT abandon X11.

* Remote execution of programs, via DISPLAY environment variable, where the UI is presented on a remote desktop across a network.

* The ability to run an application locally, using a similar method, with a different logged-in user context (works playing video, too). I can do this to REALLY sandbox a web browser, including cache, settings, script/cookie enabling, and so on.

* X11 is by its very nature client/server, and therefore leverages multi-core (to some extent) already.

* glx and driver-specific OpenGL already exist for enhanced performance

* change for the sake of change - ALWAYS a bad idea - Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority" comes to mind

Having "Wayland Too" is fine, as compatibility is a GOOD thing. They just need to make sure that X11 is _NOT_ abandoned!

Otherwise, GTK3-based programs, which seem to run 'ok' on my Mate desktop systems, will NOT be able to run outside of a Wayland-based system.

(and having GTK3 more compatible with Mate settings, like getting rid of some of the scrollbar weirdness, would be a nice feature, too)

(and make those STUPID phone-friendly-menus and icons OPTIONAL rather than MANDATORY)

Down the Swanny: '2020 has been the most challenging year in my career' says Intel CEO as profit plunges 30%

Re: We live in interesting times

customers are slightly miffed about the little tiny CPU security vulnerabilities thing that we all had to work around at our cost to patch and the reduction in performance

Since AMD processors were "mostly unaffected" by the more egregious vulnerabilities, I'd put this at the TOP of the list of "why our profits were lower than expected" [including the efforts to mitigate it].

RE: spending $1 billion on 'diversity'

They have set their priorities straight...

you were KIDDING, right? [in my view, that would be lawsuit defense at the expense of profitability]

a poisoned tree bears poisonous fruit.

Intel might need to 'clean house' a bit, though. Mega-corporations tend to become top-heavy, lots of bureucratic "scampering" without actually getting anything done (makes me think 'Agile'). They could most likely re-arrange their middle and upper management to become more efficient, maybe incentive for early retirement bonuses and things of that nature. (You can do it without layoffs, in other words)

But usually when companies like Intel restructure, they sharpen their axes instead... and upper management seems to stay about the same, doesn't it?

and a remaining question, does "diversity" include AGE?

Is it Iran or Russia's hackers we need to worry about? The Russians, definitely the Russians, says US intelligence

Re: I think you're forgetting something

that's the password on my luggage!

Re: I think you're forgetting something

Maybe the Russians think we look like them.

And believe we hack into Russia..

Most likely, yeah. But I don't think that Russian hackers are out there trying to destroy the USA from within. It's most likely your average cloak+dagger spying, which has been going on since WW2.

(what nobody ever watched a James Bond movie from the 60's, 70s, and 80's?)

Here's a thought: why didn't anyone mention CHINA and N. Korea?

Developer survey: C# losing ground to JavaScript, PHP and Java for cloud apps, still big in gaming

This data seems to be missing out on a lot of complexity.

The TIOBE index has always (in my opinion) been a more accurate indicator of language popularity, and it has consistently shown a predominance of Java and C (with occasional jockeying for 1st place) followed by various other languages (including C++). C-pound is generally much lower, currently at around 4.1 percent.

Currently Python is bumping up, challenging Java, which has dropped significantly. I suspect this is only temporary, though. There was a temporary downward bump for C in mid 2017 for some reason, possibly due to introduction of new languages in certain highly visible public projects (I'm thinking Rust but I can't tell from the chart).

And for October 2020, closely following C-pound at 4.1%, is VB at 4%, and JavaScript is at a pathetic 2.1%. This is a _bit_ different from the values in the article, which put JavaScript and C-pound at significantly higher percentages.

Programming language surveys can easily be corrupted by improper sampling, and the way the questions have been worded. I think TIOBE's statistics, which have been collected and tracked for DECADES, are a much better representation of where things are REALLY going.

Kick Google all you like, Mozilla tells US government, so long as we keep getting our Google-bucks

I have to wonder what would happen if someone(s) who are NOT bent on forcing the world into 2D FLATTY McFLATSO web interfaces (i.e. Mozilla since "Australis") were to supply the 90% of revenue Mozilla appears to 'need'... when all they REALLY needed to do in the FIRST place was maintain a working browser that, uh, worked. And NOT "feature creep". Like "Australis". And it drives another question, would they make Mozilla look like it did BEFORE Australis if the hand that feeds them (or teet that nourishes them) WANTS it?

I can't think of a good analogy for this, other than feeding pigeons. What happens when the bird lover stops coming?

Windows 10 October 2020 Update arrives: Nothing that will drop your jaw, but we've had enough of 2020's fun surprises anyway

Re: Update blocking info

When I get home, I'm going to a try a re-install

Last year I built a Ryzen system with FreeBSD on it. no problems related to CPU nor motherboard.

But, since you're re-installing anyway... got Linux? (or BSD)

Everybody's going to the Moon (and Mars): The Reg chats to ESA about 10-year plans and sending Tim back to space

Re: "After all, big dreams are all well and good, but somebody has to foot the bill."

I think that the benefits of NASA-related spending greatly outweigh the cost. Think miniaturized electronics and lightweight aircraft materials, for starters.