* Posts by bombastic bob

10515 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

It's a Bing thing: Microsoft drops plans to shove unloved search engine down throats of unsuspecting enterprises

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Three card trick

to do this properly you need a shill who makes it SO tempting to jump in and start choosing the card FOR him that you get suckered in...

But yeah - MS changes your default search FOR you, because they *FEEL* "it is better" [pejorative use of the word 'feel'] , and the shill comes along and THANKS Micro-shaft for having done so, glowingly reviewing how much BETTER things are, now...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

WHY do they even TRY these things? (do they think we are STUPID?)

what it says in the title

Jeff Bezos: I will depose King Trump

bombastic bob Silver badge
WTF?

Re: To be honest ...

"The conservatives have long ago learned to fight dirty"

W.T.F. planet and universe are YOU on???

Donald Trump's primary reason for GETTING elected is becauwe Conservatives were *NOT* fighting back, at all, and us voters were SICK of that, so we elected Trump because he *WOULD* fight and we're very very happy about it! 95% approval in the Republican party, 80% or so among INDEPENDENTS.

That says a LOT, you know...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: To be honest ...

up vote from ME, but you *know* the howler monkeys will ALWAYS throw poo at you if you don't tow the liberal line... (and hence all the downvotes). I wouldn't be surprised if they're all sock puppets of the same 1 or 2 individuals.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: To be honest ...

When I see what the Trump haters say about our president, and who it is that they are, it makes me LIKE TRUMP EVEN MORE!!

In the mean time, you KNOW Bezos would NEVER do this against a president of "the other party". That makes it PARTISAN, POLITICAL, and therefore, FRIVOLOUS. He and his RIDICULOUS lawsuit should be LAUGHED out of the court room.

"Sore loser" indeed.

Windows 7 will not go gentle into that good night: Ageing OS refuses to shut down

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Splat goes the dinosaur

how long before my "activation key" stops working? What if I have to replace a hard drive?

Arm gets edgy: Tiny neural-network accelerator offered for future smart speakers, light-bulbs, fridges, etc

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Oh No...

Well consider this:

a) your IOT device responds to voice commands by SENDING THE VOICE DATA TO A SERVER that hoovers up your personal information INCLUDING what you asked for [and requires 7/24 internet in order to work[

- or -

b) your IOT device responds to voice commands using an on-board AI system that requires little (or no) internet traffic in order to function

I pick 'b'

Built to last: Time to dispose of the disposable, unrepairable brick

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Is it any coincidence...

actually it coincided with the laws of physics as related to "Moore's Law".

CPU speed increases were becoming more difficult due to the distance between CPU and RAM, for starters. Wire lengths and "how small can we make it" started to hit limits. The amount of time it took to cross 3Ghz (after hitting 2Ghz) is an indicator. The engineering was MUCH more sophisticated. So CPUs became "wider" instead, bigger caches, more cores, etc.. But people aren't having to replace their computers ever 2-3 years because "the new stuff" won't run on it properly, either. So I have to wonder how much of a hand MS had in all that, writing crappy replacements for earlier software that was MORE efficient, simply because CPUs and RAM were more powerful now [so they could get away with being SLOPPY[.

The "downfall" is them NOT being able to be SLOPPY any more, because nothing is perceived to be "faster" with "their latest" on it.

(and artificially killing windows 7 was more of a mistake than they could possibly realize)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: "something more durable – with upgrade paths"

well your tube argument is (unfortunately) not so relevant in this case. Tubes cost $$ and you'll need a LOT of them to do the same job as a small circuit board filled with ICs and so on. They haven't been regularly used in the consumer market since the 1980's, other than picture tubes (and they went away by 2000's). WAY too expensive (but guitar amplifiers, that's a different animal). In many cases the swapout of a tube means an expensive alignment procedure, or the thing wouldn't *quite* work properly after you swap the tube, RF and IF circuits, specifically [sometimes other things, too].

But the principle is good - swappable available components that end-users could easily repair with.

I've purchased repair parts for older stuff (replacement DVD for Wii, replacement CPU fan and DVD for Sony Vaio, new batteries and new chargers for other laptops, yotta yotta) and they're still perfectly good. Hoever, I had a bit of difficulty getting a new CD laser assembly for an old Game Cube a couple of years ago. In short I got sent the WRONG part, but the price was so low it wasn't worth returning. I had access to a 2nd game cube though, so "that" became "the solution".

[and those old game cube games work perfectly well]

admittedly, though, repairing XBox 360 has been a problem. I ended up buying 2 different "reconditioned" models to replace the first one, which broke its DVD drive. The first replacement started overheating after a year or so but the 2nd one is still working just fine. [at some point I'll go through the hell it takes to swap the DVD between the 2 older ones and get a working unit out of it].

so yeah - repair the old stuff, it's perfectly good when you do. And I really don't want to DOWNgrade to an XBox One...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Used cars vs. new ones

one-year-old ex-rental is good, assuming the rental company did proper maintenance. You hear the horror stories about people abusing rentals, but taking that into consideration, if it got its regular oil changes and filter changes and so forth, seems to have worked well enough for me.

that being said... when I buy computer hardware I'm often getting "last year's cutting edge tech" for a similar reason.

Hey GitLab, the 1970s called and want their sexism back: Saleswomen told to wear short skirts, heels and 'step it up'

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Why isn't any one offended men were required to wear a blazer and slacks or suit?

"people getting whipped up into a frenzy"

Yeah, THERE's the problem.

("Feelers" doing all that "feeling" and being manipulated into a frenzy - who'd a thunk it?)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Why isn't any one offended men were required to wear a blazer and slacks or suit?

ask women which they prefer, men in suits, or men in "grubby casuals"...

It _does_ work both ways. But men usually don't get offended by it.

I once bought a funny 'porn for women' picture book for my sister, featuring men in tuxedos doing housework [as a joke of course]. the concept was BRILLIANT!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Well... is called Gitlab

probably named because of the Linux-inspired source control system 'git' which (I bet) was named becauswe you want to "go and 'git' the latest source code from the repo". yeah it's a US'ian thing.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

Re: Women are more sexist than men

Beer, Sir!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Women are more sexist than men

At least it wasn't "wear a short skirt and tall boots to cover MOST of your legs, except for the part that naturally draws male gaze away from your face". And speak in a softer, higher pitched voice.

"Sex Sells"

(heh heh heh)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

until a week ago I looked like the 'Zig Zag' guy because I mostly work at home and just couldn't find the time to do the haircut thing, but now I've got a nice buzz-cut and super-short beard to match.

Good for another year! (had to spend a day on site, too, and the hair in my eyes was bothering me, and I'd been saying "I need a haircut" for 2 months)

But yea if the job required it, I'd do "suit and tie" with bi-weekly buzz cut and clean-shaven face. You do what you have to. Sorta like when you're in the military.... (which I _was_ for 6 years - and prior to that, I had to wear a tie to work, being a store employee for a large drug store chain)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

more like "women can wear what they want so that we avoid being sued"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Sexual harassment

Or, you could just NOT SAY ANYTHING except that the woman who DOES wear the short skirts and heels always seems to get the promotion and best pay...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

"They all need to step it up, and be at their most attractive, because that's how sales works"

Exactly!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

"I am offended by your assumption that there is a universal measure of attractiveness"

Sorry, but welcome to the REAL world, in which people are regularly judged by attractive/unattractive _AND_ where "the beautiful people" are generally hired more often and with higher pay scales.

Otherwise, why ELSE would we dress nice and clean up our appearances (decent haircut, makeup for women, whatever) before a job interview? Come on, you KNOW it is TRUE...

To the sales staff, you ALSO know this is true, which is why SUCCESSFUL sales people dress as if they're going to a job interview, whenever they present the company products in front of potential customers.

It just IS, no matter how ANYONE *FEELS* about it. because, HUMAN NATURE.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: bah, humbug, and it's the 60s, not the 70s.

"having the girls dress like Uhura"

At least it's not a dominatrix getup with 'hooker boots', black leather motorcycle jacket, and a studded black leather hat... (or 'Zettai Ryouiki magic ratio' socks/skirt with a high school uniform)

Google Chrome to block file downloads – from .exe to .txt – over HTTP by default this year. And we're OK with this

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Fine by me

if DOM and JS and CSS had NOT become so *OVERLY* *COMPLEX* this might actually be true...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Serious overreach

yes, the 'Windows Vista' ads for Mac - "Cancel or allow" "Cancel or allow" "Cancel or allow" [from the M.I.B. guy in dark glasses standing behind 'PC']

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

Re: Release 100....

thanks, for that (brain bleach please)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Doesn't make any sense

"Windows has been in the habit of taking action on a file -- typically executing it -- based on the name and/or extension"

This is mostly a two-sided problem. On the one side, file extensions are used to identify files of a particular type by applications that trust the content to match the extensions. *THEN* they CLUELESSLY pass the thing on to 'ShellExecuteEx()' or similar functions that actually scan the header to determine what to do with it. So an executable file renamed "harmless.zip" gets passed to 'ShellExecuteEx()' as-is with default parameters and it RUNS AS AN EXECUTABLE (rather than opening the program that is supposed to view ZIP files) and *VOILA* your computer is spamming others, logging your keystrokes, and cranking out blockchains!!!

Well, you get the idea.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Annoying tho

"If there are no sites left that can work with other browsers, then the web becomes nonexistent to me entirely."

Good summary.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Annoying tho

This argument ONLY works when there is TRUE competition on a LEVEL playing field.

Otherwise, the monopolist *WINS*.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Annoying tho

at some point it might become the *ONLY* browser, if things keep trending the way they are. This is especially true on *ANDROID*. Keep in mind, Chrome's now the back-end for Windows web browsing.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Not as disruptive as it sounds

if "Mixed Content" is the driving force behind this, it makes sense. Sort of.

If this continues such that it affects *EMBEDDED* systems [which might be serving up http content to a chrome browser running in 'kiosk' mode and NOT be using https] then it's "game over" for using chromium in such systems.

but it's just like "developers" [around which I can NOT put enough quote marks to convey my snark] to be CLUELESS to the impacts their *FEELY* decisions have... from 2D FLATTY to this latest thing.

Android owners – you'll want to get these latest security patches, especially for this nasty Bluetooth hijack flaw

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Bluetooth impeached

"My phone Android gets updates every day"

How's your bandwidth overage charges doing?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Who would not do this?

"Surely nobody leaves their Bluetooth open like that?"

I think you have to explicitly enable it to discover something via bluetooth. And don't call me Shirley.

That being said, if you have BT headphones connected, and you pause, and then resume again (oh I'm on the train I want to make a phone call now), it probably re-connects your bluetooth stuff too on power up [which would make you vulnerable for that brief period of time].

Bada Bing, bada bork: Windows 10 is not happy, and Microsoft's search engine has something to do with it

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Had absolutely no idea Bing was involved in what I thought was a local-system search.

Surprise!

"All your base" belong to MICROSHAFT!

It's the #1 reason why I _HATE_ the 'search' "feature" on Win-10-nic - and why I don't really use it in 7, either.

For a better search : Install Cygwin, learn to use 'find' 'grep' and similar command line tools

[I have ALSO been disabling "index service" since XP, as a matter of course, because I do NOT want it eating up CPU and/or disk space to index things that I will *NEVER* search among]

hitting "the cloud" before the local system on searches is *SO* *WRONG* on *SO* many levels!

RIP FTP? File Transfer Protocol switched off by default in Chrome 80

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Such a fuss..

"There's no need for FTP when there's SFTP."

_WRONG_. SFTP doesn't work anonymously. The SFTP login allows shell access (more or less) as well as access to the ENTIRE file system, not just a pre-defined tree. It would be MUCH MORE difficult to secure and lock down SFTP than it would to simply allow "no uploads" anonymous FTP to access a specific tree and NOT the entire file system!

If you upload, yes: sftp gives a LOT of control and security to the person uploading. It also gives him access to the ENTIRE machine's file system. That's not a very good thing, really....

For uploads I like handling them as 'POST' transactions. There are a few scripts out there (Perl CGI or php, your choice) that let you set up a server to accept file posts. Then a human would have to review the files and do something with them, unless you WANT scammers to upload their crap to your anonymous FTP and then reference it via an alias within an ad or spammed e-mail - not to mention MALWARE and worse things.

So - ftp is FINE for anonymous download ONLY. For anything else, take the time to set up sftp or use some OTHER method (like file POST via http).

bombastic bob Silver badge
Flame

Re: anon@penet.fi

"an ARROGANT developer under the age of 40"

fixed it for ya!

<rant>

There are PLENTY of the arrogant developers under 40 out there. They do things like changing the UI into something THEY *FEEL* (not think, not customer want) is "better", THEN cram it down everyone's throat and call it "modern". And don't forget the constant 'feature creep' in otherwise useful applications until they becomes unmanageable bloatware, etc.. And, like with FTP in Chrome, they REMOVE features they don't use (or understand) because they *FEEL* they should. Nevermind what CUSTOMERS (i.e. end-users) want! Or, NEED...

</rant>

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: Active and Passive

yeah, the NAT stuff was worked out like 2 decades ago via netfilter, and similarly in other OSs. it's not that hard, really, to alter TCP frames and their related ACK packets. Check out the ftp protocol NAT handler for netfilter some time. Really NOT that complicated, ya know? [unless some DWEEB rips the utility functions out of netfilter, because it's "old fashioned", which would probably send Linus into an explosive meltdown]

And, as we all know, a YUGE number of NAT routers are running Linux, and NAT'ting with netfilter.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: If FTP is disliked what about TFTP ??

correct - an anonymous FTP site that ONLY allows downloads is reasonably secure. SFTP, on the other hand, gives you access to the shell, and if you don't set it up properly you can basically expose a shell to anyone who uses it... might as well include ';ssh' 'scp' and 'rsync' with your server offerings, and if you can manage to lock THOSE down in a reliable and trustworthy manner, thumbs-up to you.

But for an archival data site - anonymous read-only ftp works JUST fine!

["they" got rid of gopher in a similar manner - "they" forget that not ALL of us are windows-using content consumers]

What a terrible result from this year's Super Bowl. Can you believe it? Awful. Yes, we're talking about the tech ads

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Microsoft

I'm not really a fan of "diversity" nonsense anyway. It's a "something" but in and of itself, only meaningful if she becomes one of the BEST COACHES. Otherwise, are they IMPLYING that being FEMALE is some kind of HANDICAP? (I *HOPE* NOT!!!)

There are only a few rewards that REALLY matter, and fame should be low on the list. (money, authority, and being able to do what you want are MUCH better ones, as one example). And fame should be based SOLELY on what you've accomplished, and NOT what you were BORN as [and we should NEVER have to use politically correct lingo to refer to HER as a FEMALE, either - being born with 'girl parts' is *ASSUMED*]. But the "social whatever" types just LOVE their "diversity" nonsense, don't "they"?

I say *DOING* is *MUCH* more important than *JUST* *BEING*.

(it does prove ONE thing: the NFL isn't sexist)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: did not watch

I thought the superbowl game itself was one of the better ones.

Mostly I ignored the ads. the only one worth watching was the 'Groundhog Day' one featuring an aged Bill Murray reprising his role in the uber-funny movie, driving a particular brand of car (which as I recall was ALSO in the original movie, at least at some point)

Some people watch for the ads. Some ads are funny, including a running joke about a guy with a stain on his shirt that showed up (with a basket of laundry and a particular detergent) as a cameo role within several OTHER commercials like a Monty Python running gag. There was also another one where a company with many products had their product icons doing things related to the products they represent in a humorous way, all at the same time, many being products that have actually been around since the 1960's (so the images representing those products were all very well known).

But yeah the tech ads - they seemed WAY too agenda-driven for my taste. I hope the return on those ads is SO PATHETIC that "they" NEVER try that kind of crap AGAIN...

At last, the fix no one asked for: Portable home directories merged into systemd

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Why?

just remember to include 'soft' and 'nointr' in your mount options in fstab [or elsewhere]. Otherwise a b0rked network connect via NFS would probably create problems you don't EVEN want to consider...

Interestingly I understand ZFS has some built-in NFS-related features... [have not tried yet though]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Jeez

Take a look at a typical port for a major application written "for Linux" such that it runs on FreeBSD, and this becomes VERY clear.

Linux-isms are often all over the place, from the assumptions about /proc or /sys to the presence of D-bus or hald or (worse) PULSE AUDIO or (even worse) SYSTEMD.

They should build/test on FreeBSD and Devuan and maybe even Slackware first, before releasing.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Jeez

"To this day, I still do not know what possessed the Debian Project to go with systemD as the init system"

This might help: http://blog.jorgenschaefer.de/2014/07/why-systemd.html

His summary: the insight from this blog post should be that SysV init is simply outdated and The race for the standard to replace SysV init was won, for better or worse, by systemd.

Translation: he "felt". I use the 'F' word 'feel' in a pejorative sense. If the individual processes were to use the 'daemon' utility, and/or manage themselves, this would NOT be "needed". Fixing the init scripts to comply with a standard, would have been better. and in fact, they did. 'service blahblah command' would do the trick. But I digress...

My initial impressions with this blog were POOR, noting the "light grey on blinding white" color scheme, for starters. That's pretty clueless and irritating to ANYONE over 50 (and quite possibly younger) because, dammit, even THICK GLASSES aren't enough to see THAT kind of irritating color scheme!!! It's actually WORSE than the light blue on blinding white that GOOGLE and APPLE use! And so you can assume that THESE guys (who make their allegedly-cool-looking web pages UNREADABLE by half the people on the planet) are arrogant, just based on the color choices, with NO clue as to the reality outside of their tiny little circle.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Jeez

I visited that link - wow! thanks for that, I now have new material for nightmares (heh)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Jeez

"as it is optional..."

For NOW... for now...

The mentality of these "Feature Creepers" is to *EVENTUALLY* *CRAM* *IT* UP OUR DOWN OUR THROATS because they *FEEL* we *MUST* do it *THEIR* way. or else. Because "they" are SMARTER or something, and know better for what WE should have.

A very very very old business principle says: The CUSTOMER is always right. Give the CUSTOMER what he wants, and if he does NOT want something you know he needs, SELL IT with a good convincing sales pitch so that he's ultimately HAPPIER about what you have to offer.

Cramming "new unwanted" creeping features into our body orifices isn't "that".

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Abandoned my home directory years ago

"Now it's completely over-run with other programs' crap."

They're supposed to conform to the Open Desktop standard, put things into ~/.config or ~/.local or ~/.programname and so on. If they're NOT doing that, you should complain VERY loud to the developers and tell them to comply with open standards, maybe do a pull request with a patch to do exactly that...

In any case, all of those ~/.programname directories are a bit irritating. I prefer it when they use ~/.config/programname instead. It makes the home dir root a LOT cleaner.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: Finally!

"Why can't Poettering go away and write his own OS"

Conspiracy theory: Micro-shaft money is behind it. Part of the 'Embrace, Extend, Extinguish' plan.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Finally!

ASCII is the latest release, I think. I suggest a clean install with mate desktop using a netinstall image.

THEN, tarball your /home from the existing box, untar onto new box, re-creaet the users and groups with matching IDs, and VOILA!

yeah I've done this a few times, replicating my settings in VMs and on various hardware

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: GDPR...

suggestion: dollarize (or GBP-ize) what they've done and do a report to supervisor(s) and manager(s) with financial people present in the room. Propose cost savings that include NOT doing those things [and something more sane in its place]. It might even get you a BONUS...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Better idea: put that kind of thing in a cloud storage or cloud-bsed repo of some kind...

got git[hub|lab] ??

also with the way things are right now I have no trouble making a tarball of my /home tree for backup. if I need something more exotic than an SD card or USB drive to move files around, I can consider the cloud storage method of syncing things up.

seriously do we REALLY need to "sync up devices" to that extent, especially when tarball backups have been sufficient since FOREVER...

I would NOT be surprised if Poettering's latest brainfart causes my existing "tarball backup of /home directories method" to IRREVOCABLY BREAK and require much effort on my part to deal with whatever he's done...

I now DISlike systemd even MORE than I did before.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: Systemd is devastating

Got Devuan??

Universal Woe Platform: Microsoft shows UWP support – by yanking ad monetisation

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: "no longer viable for us to continue operating the product at the current levels"

Well, at the very least, Lucy won't let Charlie Brown kick the football, evar. So when Micro-shaft acts like Lucy and holds the ball for us developers to kick, we need to remember the past with its uncertainty and potential horror, and say "no thanks".

So long as they don't try to restrict access to or remove Win32, targeting the old-school Win32 API should be "acceptable".

But if THAT goes away, I wonder if Wine development would SUDDENLY increase enough to make it a VIABLE replacement for Windows? Micro-shaft CAN shoot themselves in the foot enough times to get something *like* that to happen. Question is, at what point would that be?