Posts by bombastic bob

Forget tabs – the new war is commas versus spaces: Web heads urged by browser devs to embrace modern CSS

Re: "Get used to the modern"

As I recall, 13mm is 9/16" - comes in handy sometimes. I haven't done mechanic work in some time, though. Decided a while back that getting greasy and knucklebusters for 8 hours was worth 3 or 4 times the cost of 'my time' than the local specialty auto place for 'whatever repair' getting the thing done while I lazily wander around the local Walmart or Target... or in some cases, get a free ride back home, do work for money, then they pick me up when its done and I drive home.

Doing a project car for fun would be different, but maintaining "transportation car" not so much...

(still have a pretty good set of tools, though, imperial AND metric, not being used)

Re: "Get used to the modern"

i got two sets o tools to handle that...

Re: WTF

Yes - too many *HORRIBLE* things considered to be "Modern"

Re: WTF

"WTF is wrong with web development"

THAT is a VERY long list...

"Get used to the modern"

related, when I hear the word "modern" I prepare for the *cringe*...

And if arbitrarily creating some "new way" to do things BREAKS EXISTING THINGS... the resulting chaos won't be worth it [except to the eggheads who came up with 'yet another "modern" to foist upon us']

Billionaires showered with wealth as experts say global economy set for long and deep recession

Re: whenever governments grab MORE control...

you're welcome to live under an OPPRESSIVE COMMUNIST REGIME that was GOING HOUSE TO HOUSE AND ROUNDING PEOPLE UP for having FEVERS [or speaking out against the Chinese government] if you want to. Buh-bye.

whenever governments grab MORE control...

whenever governments grab MORE control, such as due to COVID-19 responses by these governments, the RICH get RICHER, and the POOR get POORER.

The only time the lower and middle class benefit is when government LOSES a chunk of that power... i.e. lower taxes, less regulation, and so forth.

Just sayin'. It is SO predictable by those who understand what I just said. And so is the SOLUTION!!!

SO - ask yourself THIS question: WHO is benefiting from these shutdowns??? WHO is being hurt by them???

Answer: hedge funders and politicians and governments (in general) benefit. THE REST OF US are hurt.

The Adobe Flash Farewell Tour 2020: LibreOffice to axe export support for .SWF in version 7

Re: The only way to be sure,...

that, and the Cybermen

Re: Export to HTML5?

there was an old shockwave game I downloaded years ago that I thought was pretty fun. Obviously won't run NOW. Has anyone considered an application to EXPORT THESE INTO A BETTER FORMAT?

last I checked certain movie players could play flash videos. so maybe use ffmpeg to convert them? I think it'll work...

Keen to go _ExtInt? LLVM Clang compiler adds support for custom width integers

Re: Ugh!

"But why does that have to reflect itself back into something like the C programming language, which is intended for general-purpose programming?"

It is highly likely, especially in the world of IoT, that an FPGA or microcontroller could define structures and/or data with custom bit sized integers that were defined that way to function with limited RAM or limited NVRAM or EEPROM on the target device.

So the IoT device needs to have its data interpreted or 'firmly packed' before being sent to the device. It's much better if you can define the data structures and other things using the same C code for the FPGA or microcontroller *AND* the thing controlling it. Yeah, been there, done that. See my earlier post.

And, yeah, IoT makes this even more important to consider.

If LLVM implements it, gcc will no doubt follow. I use llvm with FreeBSD already, so good news for me if it gets in there this time. If it can be made a standard for the C language, that'd be awesome! [but yeah I'd expect some changes before that happens - committees need to "do things" after all]

Re: What am I missing?

"What's wrong with that?"

you used K&R bracing style. (use Allman style instead - more readable!)

Re: Sounds like a good idea

C already has bit-size designators within a structure, like

struct thingy

{

unsigned int nine_bit:9;

};

etc. - it'll get padded out to a power of 2 [probably native word size] but you can modify that with packing and so on.

Thing is, as I understand this can cause a bit of trouble with endian-ness so it's almost a YMMV kind of thing. As a result I end up hard-implementing the non-standard integer types with macros so that it's consistent regardless of integer size or endian-ness. [portable structure definitions that compile on x86, amd64, ARM, _and_ an Arduino, using those binary structures to transfer data back/forth between all of those]

having the designated _ExtInt support would probably help a LOT.

Google says no more shady anonymous web ads – if you want your billboard up, you've got to show us some valid ID

Re: Excellent - Hopefully will also exptend to Android App developers too (Like Apple do)

Unless I totally misinterpreted what you wrote...

Please do NOT encourage Android to LOCK DOWN like Apple, unlesse it's just for the use of google ad services. One of the BIGGEST advantages of Android development is the ability to load YOUR APK on ANY Android device, if the end-user jumps through a couple of minor hoops, WITHOUT their "store" in between - that and FREE DEV TOOLS.

But yeah - locking down the AD NETWORK, which goes through google's ad services as I understand it, THIS would probably be a GOOD thing.

Re: Tweets Included

yeah, ain't it the truth?

On occasion, for issues that I could vote either way on, I base my decision on who has the more irritating ads... (or worst behavior in public). THAT side gets the "no" vote.

Re: A Good Step

"I doubt that I could prove it with a DNA test as Warren did."

Uhh... you think Warren *PROVED* Native American heritage? Her DNA test was STATISTICALLY ZERO, less than 0.1% as I recall. That would be at LEAST 10 generations of separation, if I do my math correctly (if it's actually _THAT_ _HIGH_). That as opposed to *me* who DOES have Native American ancestry [Taos tribe from New Mexico, as well as others], and my late uncle once did a geneology study and traced the family tree back to the REAL Pocahontas. yeah no kidding!

Warren is NOT a Native American. It was a LIE, and she did it to get into Harvard. You cannot trust ANYTHING she says. You know she's LYING when her mouth opens.

Re: A Good Step

A quick search led to this:

https://corp.delaware.gov/agents/

So a Delaware corporation needs to have a "registered agent" for service of subpoenas, etc. If this is NOT being properly enforced, then a U.S. Federal lawsuit needs to be filed to change this...

In any case if this pertains to the "payer of the ads", and Delaware corporations _ARE_ that shady by definition, you could simply reject doing business with ANY entity incorporated there. [and if that becomes a widespread response, Delaware will have to modify their policies]

However, because I know that many people have opinions about corporations being inherently evil, etc. and aren't familiar with setting one up and what the legal requirements are [in the USA anyway], I'd just like to say that it's probably NOT as bad as you might think.

(IANAL but I've had to deal with them from time to time)

Re: A Good Step

yeah ICANN seems to (at least in the past) accept just about ANY unverified contact information, at least in my opinion...

Not quite the same as what Google appears to want to do.

Re: A Good Step

"won't tell you which oil company owns them"

It might take some digging, but as a general rule, every corporation should have registered a human to which you can send a subpoena, with the state that gives them corporate status.

I would expect UK law to be similar.

You might have to do some digging, but it SHOULD be possible to get to the bottom of ANY shadow corporation that's inside the USA. For foreign corporations, not so much... (but that's when the red light should come on and warn you it's possibly manipulative or an outright hoax).

Re: A Good Step

right, and for political ads, regardless of the content, they could require that the funder identify himself and/or the organization. then let them say "whatever".

But somehow I doubt it's the way Senator (*cough*) Warren, the senator from Massachusetts that once claimed to be Native American to get affirmative action favoritism, claims it is. She HAS been known to, uh, STRETCH facts to her own favor (read: LIE) after all... [but we can determine this ourselves, without the need of NANNY ISP to do it FOR us, thank you]

In any case, let's just stop the censorship in ALL directions, and JUST let us know who's paying for it.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Light-powered nanocardboard robots dancing in the Martian sky searching for alien life

Re: Pollution

the first step towards terra-forming?

Re: Biochemical Analyser

it could be called the Gene Hunt.

And if we listen for sounds we could name it after his made-up brother "Mike"

(fridge moment... wait for it... wait for it... wait for it... GOTCHA! - Coat please!)

Re: How do you talk to them?

martian base station(s) from which they fly and through which they communicate. like a cell tower, sorta.

Re: "third of a milligram"

weighs 35mg today. You don't need anything _THAT_ complex, by the way. And for thermal considerations, you could mount it to the 'cold side' and only burst it. average power in nanowatts, let's say, with 10's of watt bursts and a very very very tiny duty cycle, powered by a supercap and a solar charger. Also need power for sensors, too, so you factor all that in.

_NOT_ impossible. Just difficult.

Re: "third of a milligram"

using a super-capacitor, some kind of solar charger, etc. you could set up a "burst broadcaster" to transmit data [as long as it isn't too complicated]. Repeat it a whole lot and allow for unreliable reception and you can collect data.

To receive commands, you could cycle your receiver to turn on at periodic intervals with randomization, and listen for a broadcasted signal during the 'on' time. Listen long enough, and repeat the signal often enough (or make it continuous) and you can command the things, although somewhat unreliably.

Just a thought. Make it a 'swarm' and just keep using them until you run out of bots [design lifetime of the system].

Actually... this tech kinda reminds me of BALLOONS...

GCC 10 gets security bug trap. And look what just fell into it: OpenSSL and a prod-of-death flaw in servers and apps

Re: El Reg (or the readership) really has changed

"We don't think you're dumb. But I don't want to assume everyone knows what GCC is."

see icon

Re: El Reg (or the readership) really has changed

"I have no problem with acronyms being explained, even if I already know them."

ack, but there are always those who *FEEL* as if an explanation is "beneath them" or insulting. Sometimes, to preclude that with hyper-snowflake types, you can include a funny joke like "Captain Obvious knows ..."

Or whatever. Yeah, I hate that TOO. Happens a lot. People who get bent out o' shape seeing an explanation are snobby snowflakes. 'Nuff on that, yeah.

(making readership into an "exclusive club" where ONLY THE INSIDERS UNDERSTAND THINGS is NEVER a good thing, and I bet n00bs are CONSTANTLY being added to the readership)

llvm already had it - thought so

I remember seeing something uncovered in a kernel module by a new feature in llvm nearly a year ago. I forget exactly what it was, [it was an nvidia driver module compiled for FreeBSD] but it spat out some warnings I hadn't seen before. The updated version didn't have those warnings, though. But the older compiler didn't show those warnings, so I guess it was added last year some time.

Yeah, It's all good. I should add this flag to my own stuff, check for it in the configure script

If you want to take social distancing to the next level, and go to the Moon, take this: A complete lunar geology map

Re: The mad paintball warrior strikes again.

if rare earth elements are present in large enough concentration, it might make sense to mine them there.

(I checked the high res map for rabbits, didn't find any)

Yes, there's lots of COVID-19-themed scuminess around – but otherwise the level of cybercrime is the same

Re: This is bullshit.

well, I'm seeing a LOT more spam in my e-mail. I have Fail2Ban running also, and some pretty strong user/password combinations on ssh to protect against dictionary-based attacks [cryptic user names do help a bit]. So it might be entertaining to see if Fail2Ban is catching anything worth my time to make a "special friend" out of...

Seriously, though, spam HAS increased, and the usual scams, many of which _are_ corona-virus-related.

AWS rolls out 'Linux 2 Ready' scheme to lure penguins into using its homegrown distro

Re: Already ready

2.4 was a really stable kernel during the mid to late noughties, used on many wifi routers. may still be...

and it was *cough* OPEN SOURCE as it should be. [ok linksys had some BLOBs but necessarily for some, like the wifi driver - but their config app was also pre-compiled as a BLOB, which was a little irritating in some ways]

Not sure what's going on with the whole "Linux 2" distro NOT publishing source directly... don't all of the OTHER derived Linux distros have their own repos?

Web pages a little too style over substance? Behold the Windows 98 CSS file

Re: Better

YES!

Re: This is exactly what the internet was designed for

maybe just bite the bullet with a) a browser that destroys all history/cookies/cache on exit, and b) 10 minute e-mail address

(assuming the video is worth watching...)

/me wonders if youtube-dl will download it ANYWAY

["restricted content" usually means pr0n and THAT would make sense, as a joke]

Re: Death to Flat Style !

from the article:

But if there is a particular bit of Windows 98 UI design that needs to come back in 2020

How about 3D SKEUOMORPHIC!

(I would like VERY much to say "IT IS HAPPENING" but not *quite* enough activity for THAT claim... yet)

I should look at this and see what could be ported over to FIREFOX'S CSS somehow...

Python 2 bows out after epic transition. And there was much applause because you've all moved to version 3, right? Uh, right?

Re: Repeat Offenders?

"As if C++ could be trusted to always compile with the newer version of the compiler"

at least with the C++ compilers I work with you can specify whether or not the new language features should be implemented, i.e. "-std=c++14" for C++14 features

making it similar for python - that'd be nice!

Re: Repeat Offenders?

"can the Pythonistas be trusted to not do this ever again? It’s been fairly off putting."

No. Good point.

Re: lol

Django? I had to deal with that, at one time. *shudder* - it re-defines new levels for BLOATware.

My solution to MANY of the problems it CAUSED by Django (and bad python code) was to write C language utilities to do REAL work with reasonable performance, and then call the programs from the Django Python code [instead of trying to gerrymander Python code] and not only made it work properly [from the user perspective], but made it way more than 10 times faster in the process. That code should NEVER have been done in Python to begin with...

It was also the first time I'd seen upstream feature creep break an installation. I figured out how to force Pip to ONLY load specific versions of things to prevent breakage, just so I could work on it. It was sad.

Re: lol

I have a suggestion: why NOT add backwards compatibility BACK INTO THE LANGUAGE?

You know, like a COMPATIBILITY MODE ???

can't be THAT hard...

(or, is it MORE important to WIELD CONTROL and FORCE DEVELOPERS to "do things the new way" ???)

WHY make the older code IN-compatible like this?

I saw THIS which explains SOME of it... but it does NOT explain why there isn't a "backward compatible" setting of some kind.

This seems to be one of those things that came about in the mid to late naughties, after which a bunch of VERY ARROGANT DEVELOPERS over the next few years just "DECIDED" - culminating in gnome 3, Australis, 2D FLATTY Windows 8, systemD, Pulse Audio, and of course the changes in Python 3 - they "JUST DECIDED" that ALL OF US MUST CHANGE and do things THEIR WAY!!!

And of course, it *WAS* *RESISTED*, to the point of forking gnome 2 into Mate, creating Linux distros withOUT SystemD, and "forcing" the extension of the life of Python 2.7 ...

maybe a FORK is in order? [are there enough people to support such a thing?]

I don't do a lot of Python coding and so I may just deal with it and do things "the 3.x" way, but it might be nice to be able to write old-style code, which I had gotten used to, using a "compatibility" flag.

Academics: We hate to ask, but could governments kindly refrain from building giant data-slurping, contact-tracing coronavirus monsters?

Re: And the non-centralised approach

"And yet, countries that have implemented a variant of this (e.g. Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea) have had far less problem with COVID-19 than others."

Sorry, this is a FALSE conclusion. Singapore and Taiwan are also VERY close to China and have had a LOT of back/forth travel.

As has CALIFORNIA, which (surprise, surprise) does NOT have a very high infection or hospitalization rate, especially when compared to New York City.

And California has had a TON of travel back/forth with China. Case in point: a company I do contract work for [up until the shutdown affected their customers so much THEY had to shut down, too] had sent engineers to China to correct some quality problems, and when they got back I was in the office. One guy got sick and had to go home [fever, coughing]. I joked with him about "infecting everybody" and guess what - a week later [working from home] I had a fever, and then my (adult) kid got a fever, and then I had another fever (the reported 'relapse'?). And each time it was mild, and went away fast. Was that the Wuhan virus? Probably. At that time California was reporting an unusually bad flu season, but of course nothing its hospitals could not handle [which has been demonstrated over the last MONTH or so, "social distancing" notwithstanding, and California's governor started giving away ventilators a while ago].

But of course, politicians and advocates of CONTROLLING THE POPULATION like this will CLAIM it was "the social distancing" but if this virus HAD BEEN AROUND FOR 3 MONTHS BEFORE ANY SOCIAL DISTANCING then HOW could it be "the factor" ??? I say it was NOT. Most likely it was either a gross overestimation of the Wuhan virus' behavior, OR some level of herd immunity [being exposed to similar kinds of viruses a LOT due to travel to/from China], or perhaps both. And, MUCH lower death rates because U.S. health systems are better than China's overall...

Same for Taiwan, Singapore, and other nations in the pacific rim. I expect their health systems to be up to par with USA, UK, etc., as another factor in this.

As for Italy and NYC, there may be a commonality THERE that causes them to be affected MORE than other places. Italy certainly had the frequent travel to/from China, but not so much NYC. However, NYC has a LOT of public transportation usage, and a high density population.

I mentioned the Stanford study before. As they continue their research, we'll get to the truth on this.

In any case, check out the REAL commonalities here. With at least ONE good counter example, "draconian anti-privacy phone app tracking" isn't the factor.

Re: And the non-centralised approach

that's two hundred people before you show symptoms - if you ever show any.

The numbers from a compelling Stanford University survey [as reported by the S.F. Chronicle recently] says that the infection rate of the Wuhan virus could be 50 to 85 TIMES HIGHER than expected, mostly people with mild or NO symptoms at all. So take that 200 people, times 85 [for the people who do not show symptoms] and extrapolate the new infection rate...

Seriously contagious, isn't it? Yet, not so fatal when the denominator is multiplied by 50 [this puts it VERY close to influenza, for which we DO NOT SHUT DOWN, EVAR]. And with those kinds of numbers, tracking "known cases" (one in 50? one in 85? or WORSE?) doesn't sounds so useful any more... [and neither does HUNKER IN YOUR BUNKER or even wearing masks to prevent spreading it]. Though I'd expect if you're coughing or sneezing you should PROBABLY wear a mask... (I would).

A few weeks from now people are going to realize I was right about this all along. If your infection rates do NOT look like New York City did, or Italy did, chances are they won't. And the USA will have plenty of masks, ventilators, and gloves to share in case they do. [already happening]. So living paranoid about "was I near an infected person" - and a PHONE APP to track you - pointless indeed.

Re: And the non-centralised approach

YES! (why would ANYONE downvote that?)

the first person who's furloughed or fired for having been NEAR someone that "tested positive" for the Wuhan virus, and "just has to accept it", will prove the point.

Re: And the non-centralised approach

"Or I will uninstall the app"

that's where you got it right.

NO privacy violations! [whatever happened to GDPR ???]

I guess when Henny Penny and Chicken Little decide the SKY IS FALLING, then all privacy-protection bets are OFF.

I like what the academics warned about this at the beginning of the article, but the "ruling class" elite learned LONG ago that manipulating a population through Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt leaves a LOT of citizens willing to give up freedom for a FALSE sense of security.

Scaleway disarms its ARM64 cloud, cites unreliable hardware as the reason

stuff that is "too cutting edge" sometimes fails earlier than expected. I've had to replace a couple o' motherboards for similar reasons... and the 1 year later motherboard is rock solid, performs the same, and lasts for over a decade [and costs less]. Could just be THAT.

Re: Yet another example

well cloudy servers have their place BUT yeah, "all eggs in one basket" shouldn't be done either. Somewhere a balance of that would make the most sense. Maybe the cloud system includes a server local to the company on its private connection, and then a good portion of the real work is done "in the cloud" on other servers... so if THEY go down [or YOU], the service is not significantly interrupted - ok performance degraded, but not interrupted. That's the point. Just needs to be properly designed for failure tolerance and failover.

If 'power sipping' ARM64 costs less... won't people want it?

I think it may be that they did not properly investigate the marketing opportunity, to use ARM64 to provide CUT RATE services.

Or maybe they did, and rejected the idea and didn't tell anyone?

in my opinion it could justify the procurement of lower cost ARM64-based cloud servers, which should run cooler, use less 'trons, and maybe even COST LESS for the hardware itself, as compared to its amd64 architecture cousins. Just a thought, anyway. Maybe some other cloudy provider can step in and do this, and take all of the business.

So - what's the highest expense for a cloudy provider:

a) electricity

b) intarwebs bandwidth

c) hardware

d) administrative (building, people, legal, gummint, ...)

I think a and c can be mitigated with arm64. 'b' can't though. So knowing if 'b' is the limiting factor might explain things. [of course 'd' is probably a fixed cost, and I'd expect IT support to be part of that].

Coronavirus lockdown forces UK retailers to shut 382 million square feet of floor space

Re: Cunning plan!

crude prices are low, yeah. Storage costs may exceed profits, though. It's hard to say. not a bad plan, in theory. I don't know enough about the oil industry to comment further, except to say "why isn't anyone doing this already?"

My guess is that these people know something... something that we do not.

[smart money doesn't announce its plans nor its reasons for them]

you forgot the troll icon...

well, more people doing deliveries and mail order... retailers were _already_ adapting to that. "More of Same" in THIS case would be a good thing, then!

Then instead of being a checkout clerk or shelf stocker you're a delivery driver... earning tips!

"Let's hope this puts an end on the spread"

it won't. It'll slow it down a *LITTLE* at a *HUGE* *COST* to *EVERYBODY* [except those elitists at the top who manage to make a killing during every disaster, through various forms of manipulation].

(I know everyone WANTS it to work. Reality...)

It's a VIRUS. Chances are EVERYONE will catch it at some point. SLowing things down for a BRIEF period of time ONLY makes sense if your hospitals would be overwhelmed if you did NOT do this [then you take time to prepare, and let it rip]. At some point this highly contagious disease will hit EVERYONE regardless of who you are. If you can prepare for THAT, and mitigate "triage deaths", it's worth doing a shutown. If "triage deaths" are NO LONGER A FACTOR [case in point, *NOW*], it is POINTLESS to try and stop a virus by SHUTTING DOWN EVERYTHING "deemed non-essential" like this. It's certainly EXTREMLY HARD on 1/3 of society who work in service industries, and chances are they're middle or lower class wage earners. [why aren't socialists SCREAMING about THIS right now? Hmmm???]

It just so happens that service industry businesses are my customer's customers, and they're doing poorly, and that's affecting ME, too. EVERYBODY HURTS FROM THIS, in other words. Misery "trickles down", and for WHAT, a FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY?

RECOGNIZE it's a virus, it's HIGHLY infectious, and it CANNOT be stopped without some form of "Herd Immunity". But you CAN mitigate things at the hospitals, protect specific individuals, AND ACHIEVE HERD IMMUNITY, if you STOP THE SHUTDOWNS NOW!

"We have to embrace a sea-change in how everything is done"

NO!!! N !! O !! NO NO NO NO NO!!!

Instead, WHY NOT RESIST STUPID POLICIES LIKE THIS??? Or, how about this: wait until YOUR job becomes "unessential" and YOU are suddenly stuck with no income, the potential of being evicted onto the street without being able to do ANYTHING about it [except wait for big nanny gummint to "help" you], and so on.

SERIOUSLY - this whole approach is MADNESS and needs to STOP...

"New normal" my NAKED HAIRY ASS!

(time will prove that I am right, but I doubt anyone will acknowledge it)

Yes. It's called FREEDOM. And, just to make a point, it's worth DYING for. The FALSE "security" of these RIDICULOUS SHUTDOWNS [which hurts EVERYONE, but "unequally"] is *NOT* something to *EMBRACE*. It's something to *RESIST*!!!

In Rust we trust? Yes, but we want better tools and wider usage, say devs

despite the enthusiasm of developers [snip] adoption remains limited

I'd like to see more on this...

Otherwise it's starting to remind me of ADA [and why ADA was not widely accepted as a 'language of choice' for new development]

So I'm sticking with C, C++, PHP, and occasional Java and Python [and Javascript ONLY when other choices make very little sense] until there's some really compelling reason to pick a language like Rust.

(nice article though - provokes thought)