* Posts by bombastic bob

10507 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Canonical adds ZFS on root as experimental install option in Ubuntu

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: @AC - The SFC can kiss my taint...

Re: Apple and FreeBSD

"Please verify how well the two are able to earn a living and come back to tell us."

From my perspective, both seem to be alive and kicking

I've been using ZFS on FreeBSD for several years now. My 2 workstations are both "entirely ZFS" on bootup, and the server is UFS for the OS, ZFS for the data. I did that for a few reasons, making recovery a little easier being one of them.

ZFS tweakage isn't that hard. My server has 4G RAM on it. Works just fine with ZFS. you just tweek some of the memory footprint variables a bit to compensate. Slight reduction in file system performance, but reliability replication compression etc. are all working fine. But yeah an un-tweeked ZFS file system will consume 8Gb of RAM if it gets a chance.

What do Windows 10 and Uber or Lyft have in common? One bad driver can really ruin your day. And 40 can totally ruin your month

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Driver Signing

It is just a method to make sure the driver is really from the vendor BLESSED AND APPROVED BY MICROSOFT because YOU PAID THEM MONEY TO SIGN IT

Fixed that for ya!!!

The *ENTIRE* driver signing process is WORSE than COMPLETELY BOGUS, it STIFLES open source development by putting a FRICKING TOLLBOOTH in the way, and is GENERALLY a NUISANCE. And if you choose to bypass those "checks" (which are pretty worthless ANYWAY, it appears, according to the article) you get a WATERMARK in the corner of your screen, like some kind of PUNISHMENT.

Whereas, LINUX and FREEBSD do _NOT_ have this problem. All of THEIR drivers are OPEN SOURCE and you can WRITE YOUR OWN and INSTALL IT whenever you want! *NO* *STUPID* *SIGNAGE* *REQUIREMENTS*.

Yes, ever since VISTA 64-bit drivers *MUST* be signed. THAT! IS! FORNICATED! UP!!!

Tor pedos torpedoed again, this time Feds torpedo four Tor pedos – and keep how they unmasked dark-web scumbags under wraps

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

as I understand it, many Tor nodes are OWNED (not just pwned) by the Feds, for various reasons that include helping people behind national firewalls to get information, communicate, etc..

And... I'm sure they monitor exit points too, when necessary. Which ones? That's probably why it's SEALED.

I could throttle you right about now: US Navy to ditch touchscreens after kit blamed for collision

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

"Is the helmsman also controlling the speed?"

On the older ships you had something called a 'motor order telegraph', that big brass thingy with a lever on it, that says "stop, ahead 1/3, ahead 2/3, standard, full, flank" on it [also backing bells]. You'd have one for each throttle. So if the captain says "all back port, all flank starboard" you ring up the appropriate speeds on the indicators, and someone in the engine room operates the steam system accordingly.

If you have 4 shafts, then "all back port" means both of them, and "all flank starboard" is similar. But using 'all' even for a single shaft is common because people recognize that as a speed change order from the Officer of the Deck.

Perhaps the REAL problem here is the use of touch screens for something that was normally a bit more controlled, involved multiple people, etc.. You had to physically operate levers to send an order to the engine room(s) to make something happen. [this also means you can control the ship when the bridge is blown to @#$% and you have someone on deck with a sound powered phone giving orders to the various aux control stations, something that helps with a badly damaged ship trying to deal with it instead of sinking].

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

remember Three Mile Island? And the resultant melted reactor core?

One of the MAJOR reasons behind this incident was (apparently) that the various indications were on SEPARATE PANELS located across the room. So on one panel you see pressurizer level going UP. On a DIFFERENT panel you see PRESSURE going Down. Guess which one they were paying attention to? That's right, pressurizer level going UP [a stuck open valve indicated shut but was venting steam, causing level to go up... so they SHUT OFF THE FEED PUMPS to "stop it", depressurizing the core and then all hell broke loose, more or less simplified version].

So yeah, the throttles need to be in ONE place, where you have speed indication and steering, kinda like your gas pedal, brake, gear shift, and steering wheel are "right there" along with speed indication and engine parameters in your car.

But yeah, "modern" approaches like (did I mention it? OK I'll do it again - Arthur C Clarke's "Superiority") that FORGET the lessons learned in the past are ONCE AGAIN being done by the ARROGANT generation we have today. Almost as bad as it was in the 60's...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

"How did such a design pass basic functionality testing?"

Some "whiz kid" millenial type probably *FELT* it "was modern" which AUTOMATICALLY made it "better".

He did not live through the 1960's and so did not know about LBJ's "whiz kids". Nor did he read Arthur C. Clarke's "superiority". He probably *FELT* his recent education made him WISER than his predecessors, because of safe spaces, participation trophies, and having his self esteem positively re-enforced all of his life.

Or something like that. And seeing EVERYTHING through a 4 inch phone screen, held vertically, which keeps you from noticing the surroundings... like a horse with BLINDERS on.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

Re: Touch screens

outstanding analogy (ban from cars as well)!

Looking at the Navy's reaction, they're trying to avoid the obvious situation as outlined in Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority".

The U.S. Military has made bad decisions before. IN the 1950's/60's they removed guns from fighter aircraft, saying "missiles are superior". Very shortly after, the guns were restored. Why? Pilots DIED because they didn't have any guns for close-in combat!

That's one good example, and the U.S. military at least admits it F'd up and does the RIGHT thing.

So they deserve a beer! Not for screwing up, of course, but for REALIZING it and THEN admitting wrong and going back to something that WORKS, "old school" tech, but apparently BETTER tech.

Science and engineering hit worst as Euroboffins do a little Brexit of their own from British universities

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Brexit bollocks

@K

similar things have been said about Pres. Trump.

And look where we are now [economically, etc]!

(And so HOW do you like your crow? Just preppin' for the grillin' later, in a couple o' years, when the meltdown does NOT happen, and UK people are better off)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

Re: Brexit bollocks

@AC you are thinking instead of feeling. well done!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Brexit bollocks

Unfortunately, sheep have short memories.

I would normally say that kind of thing about those who usually vote 'liberal' (or Demo[n,c]rat), when they accidentally 'get it right' and vote conservative (or Republican) a few times... but then end up going back to voting liberal again like a dog eating its own vomit, because they have short memories and aren't thinking for themselves most of the time (same in USA as everywhere else I'd guess).

it's also why politicians are so DAMNED MANIPULATIVE and LIE all of the time, use EMOTION BOMBS instead of TRUTH, divide people and get them riled up like "community activists" do, and so on. People don't think well while "emoting". And so 'sheeple' have short memories.

(but I bet their 'Emotional IQ' is WONDERFUL!)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Well, you're leaving

the situation should be simple to deal with - just 'grandfather in' any EU citizen who's already in the UK and working at Brexit time as 'legal immigrants with work visas'. shouldn't be too hard at that point.

(seriously making this all harder than it needs to be)

As for academics, well, my opinion is sometimes VERY low, for often in the REAL industrial world, those who "can't", teach... [not always, but seems too frequent]. I've replaced academics before [with my University Of Mars "degree"] and had to deal with them mismanaging projects to the point of killing it off, because THEY are SMART and NOBODY ELSE is. That kinda thing.

But yeah you still need university profs, and so there's THAT. (Me to U. Prof: are you good at being a professor at a university? OK, do THAT then. Let ME do THIS...)

Anatomy of an attack: How Coinbase was targeted with emails booby-trapped with Firefox zero-days

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

How many of those FF zero days

how many of those FF zero day exploits would be BLOCKED by the simple use of NoScript ????

Just curious. (just the one? maybe that's enough)

Practice "safe surfing". use NoScript.

Bit of a time-saver: LibreOffice emits 6.3 with new features, loading and UI boosts

bombastic bob Silver badge
Joke

Re: Clippy

you forgot the icon

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Support Suggestions

maybe an IRC channel on freenode?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: Yet it still can't do box plots (box-and-whiskers)

maybe gnuplot as well?

(I haven't checked, but gnuplot does a LOT)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Fourier transform?

I can think of MANY reasons to do a fourier transform in a spreadsheet, and I have done fourier transforms on data MANY times.

It spots cyclical trends. That's why.

CYCLICAL TRENDS are important, naturally occuring. Seasonality is a good example of ONE cyclical trend, people buying certain kinds of things at Christmas time. Yeah I called it Christmas instead of "winter holidays" and a big F.U. to people who want to complain about it.

So yeah, Fourier Transforms, a welcome feature.

Point is, if I do a spreadsheet of sales data per month, or per day even, and run a fourier transform on it, I might be able to spot trends that can affect how my financial decisions are made.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

yeah I had to deal with a "UX" designer recently. He took 3 times longer than he should have to develop a FRACTION of what needed to be "DONE" by "certain time frame". I ended up taking over [being responsible for integration] to the point I just asked him to make 3 UI screens [embedded Web UI]. When he got those to me, I cloned them for the rest of the interface, and and the whole thing done in a few hours. during that time he apparently PANICKED and even started reverting my git commits. Finally I just gave up on him completely and asked him to create a single screen I was having trouble cloning from his existing code [which he did]. Lots of slack messages back/forth and him whining and complaining and "thanks for taking work away from me" etc. Well he did THAT on his own, through his own efforts.

And the worst part - most of the "work" was 3rd party libraries, which SUCK [things like jquery and 'materialize']. The features in use from these are really trivial, somewhat easily done with custom style sheets, and working around their quirks and limitations has generated a few hours of GRIEF FOR ME, whereas if I'd written it myself from scratch it would've taken LESS TIME and cost the customer less.

Anyway, VENT COMPLETE on *THAT*. 'UX' indeed. What a bunch of touchy-feely B.S. THAT is.

Oh yeah after his final deliverable he got the "thank you for your service we'll contact you" e-mail. We even had MEETINGS with an outside management consultant over this guy, how to get him to produce SOMETHING and what was going on. Just confirmed my suspicions, but it also clarified the right path and I think it's ok now (aside from the grief) because product started shipping yesterday!

well - I _do_ admit that the screens look nice. Maintainability is another issue, but even so, they look nice.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

Still looks like an early 1990s software program, they really need to work on the look and design to make it beautiful

When you say 'beautiful' you mean 2D FLATTY FLATSO McFLATFACE FLATASS FLUGLY like Win-10-nic, Office 365, and anything Chrome excretes. Am I right?

(I am SICK and FORNICATING TIRED of every @#$% "developer" jumping on THAT failing bandwagon...)

A big *THUMBS DOWN* for not recognizing the SANITY of a "classic" 90's style WIMP-friendly interface.

Alexa, can you tell me how many Chinese kids were forced into working nights to build this unit?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Plausible Deniability

This tends to happen when you have poor / non existent oversight / Audits

more like "bottom line uber alles". Sometimes you have to go with the slightly more expensive manufacturer who does NOT engage in immoral use of child labor.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Avoid buying anything from Amazon

Or perhaps: "Avoid buying anything made by Foxconn".

hard to do sometimes. However, as manufacturing moves BACK to the U.S. (and robotics improve, etc. so as to limit labor costs), as tariffs make Chinese imports "less cheap", as Mexico continues to ramp up ITS manufacturing capability, and so on, COMPETITION with China and particularly Foxconn might resolve this.

Other resolvable issues and competing alternatives ALSO exist, but there DEFINITELY needs to be an alternative to Foxconn in order to force them to stop it with the child labor crap.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Amazon Response

they quietly accept this, doing the "harumph harumph" when they get caught, pretending to be outraged, upset, or even just bothered by it all... and continuing to do business with sweat chops that engage in child labor practices like 19th century work houses.

If they were SERIOUS they'd find another manufacturer. besides Foxconn...

[As I recall, Foxconn is one of those companies (in)famous for having the '4th shift' that's off the books, where patents and copyrights are violated for "internal to China use only". Whether or not they STILL engage in those practices remains to be seen. However, ~10 yeas ago I was somewhat in the loop on that kind of thing and there WERE actual illegal clones made of company products for the company I was working for, complete with the company logo embedded inside of plastic because it changed the tuning of the RF elements by NOT being there]

Here's to beer, without which we'd never have the audacity to Google an error message at 3am

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

Re: Never mind the beer ...

without enough beer in you, you MIGHT have chosen a different path first. Instead, the alcohol goodness went straight to the lazy section of the brain and said "just google the error message and get this over with".

Neuroscientist used brainhack. It's super effective! Oh, and disturbingly easy

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: Tin foil helmet

the tin foil helmet might protect you from the electrical signals, but they won't protect US from THEM, i.e. those who want to CONTROL, or HOLD US BACK "for our own good", yotta yotta yotta.

It's getting worse, but not the way people might think. At some point "THEY" will be given TOO MUCH AUTHORITY over OUR LIVES, in the name of "for our own good". It's already being done in the SMALL things. There's a LOT to be said for FREEDOM and SELF-DEFENSE, and *NOT* being a "sheeple".

More Linux than Windows: El Reg takes Docker Desktop for WSL 2 preview out for a spin

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: Henry Spencer quote

Those who do not understand Unix & re-invent it, swear badly.

sounds like Linus, heh.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: More taint in the Docker ecosystem

Run GNU/Linux AS THE HOST OS for Windows in a VM (VirtualBox is good, other options are available).

Fixed it for ya!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: Oil & Water

[Windows] wasn't ever easier to use

Actualy it was, EASIER than MS-DOS. But it *NEVER* *REALLY* *GOT* *POPULAR* untl Windows 3.0. Why? [history lesson starts here] BECAUSE, Windows 3.0 was 3D SKEUOMORPHIC!!!

Now, Micro-shaft is BACK on the 2D FLATTY McFLATFACE FLATSO look, which is _COMPLETELY_ _BASS_ _ACKWARDS_ from THE SUCCESS of Windows 3.0!!!

*ahem*

Its only USP was backwards compatibility. Now MS are killing that in a move to copy Apple's app store, it will die for lack of an any good reason to live.

Well I'd say that is partly true, at least for Win-10-nic. 7 is pretty usable, but I've grown used to a Mate desktop on either Linux or FreeBSD.

What keeps people using Windows is WINDOWS APPLICATIONS. The OS itself is SUCKING a LOT thse days. If it weren't for APPLICATIONS, *NOBODY* would want it!!!

[so what we need are major application developers targeting POSIX operating systems directly, or open source equivalents for all of the remaining things, before MS's marketing collapses onto itself like a star turning into a black hole]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Microsoft's embracing of Linux...

I watched him do it. That's back when I attended MS Conferences. It's also back when I believed in the direction they were moving in. ".Net" initiative was my "Wake Up" moment. I stopped going. to their conferences. WRONG direction.

And thinking of WRONG direction, why is _THIS_ all 2D FLATTY FLATSO McFLATFACE like the OTHER Win-10-nic CRAP?

Microshaft ONLY excels at "getting it wrong" these days...

Reminder: When a tech giant says it listens to your audio recordings to improve its AI, it means humans are listening. Right, Skype? Cortana?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Flood their databases with meaningless offensiveness

what it says in the title - spend more time screaming profanity at your voice-enabled device, using epithets, acting like a crime boss, announcing you'll commit crimes, and things like that. Have fun with it!

and the moment they turn you in, get the PRESS involved in your "joke" and show how they VIOLATE privacy!

(There's no way THEY can win this and YOU get to have fun with it!)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Joke

Re: I sure hope it isn't buried in a click thru license

this reminds me of a south park episode... "You didn't READ it?"

Be careful what you agree to. You could end up having your mouth sewn to someone else's backside, and become a part of "the next iPhone"

Bored of laptops? Love 200Gb/s interconnects? Then you're going to hate today's Intel news

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Vulnerability? What vulnerability?

recently put together a Ryzen-based system. Hadn't upgraded hardware in a DECADE. Intel was ok on the old system, but I like the newer AMD stuff a WHOLE lot better!

Intel needs to up their game in the face of AMD. That INCLUDES fixing Spectre/Meltdown

Trump continues on the warpath: Now US tariffs cover nearly everything arriving from China

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: The Wages of Neo-Liberalism

"Walmart imports a lot of Chinese crap."

doesn't take long going through the store to determine whether this is true or not, but yeah, low-end department stores nearly always buy from the cheapest supplier, which currently involves a lot of companies in China. Do you blame them?

The question that arises is whether or not China is engaging in predatory trade practices that KEEP these stores from buying their 'cheap crap' from OTHERS...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: He needs the money for the next round of tax cuts for the well off

your FEELINGS have been noted, and observed to be nothing but opinions based in emotional reaction.

Unless you have actual EVIDENCE... [which I doubt]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Worrying...

"a massive holding of US debt."

which COULD get canceled... (this was Obaka's fault, by the way, to have them buy up all of those bonds)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Trump likes winners

last I heard this sort of thing was a form of TAX EVASION...

and if they ARE doing it, they deserve the appropriate punishment (even sanctions, etc.)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Talk is cheap

"trade is a give and take relationship that can't always be "take" for one side."

Very! Well! Said!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: The only thing the tariffs accomplish

thanks for the leading question. the premise you state in the form of a question is WRONG, i.e. that

a) tariffs are VAT taqxes on cheap crap at walmart

b) billionaire hedge fund managers are the [only?] recipients of a 1 trillion dollar tax cut

First, I shall school you on tariffs, what they are, and why they are a good idea in THIS case...

Traditionally ALL countries (including the UK) charge taxes on things, and imports are no exception. These are called 'tariffs'. They help fund the government, and also help prevent a foreign country from RUINING a particular business within YOUR country through various predatory and unfair practices (such as 'dumping').

If this were essential items, then MAYBE you'd have a point. but it's not. The end result is that China will lose business to other competing nations and businesses [remember China is STILL COMMUNIST, and really state-owns pretty much EVERYTHING when you boil it all down], when it's now possible for the others to compete.

Predatory competition has been used forEVAR to shut down the competition, form monopolies, and then REALLY rape the customer down to his last penny. Tariffs are a way for a nation to STOP this at the border. That's what's happening NOW.

Now, when it comes to TAX CUTS: When cigarette taxes are used to stop people from smoking, it should be obvious that taxation REDUCES an activity. In the case of taxing INCOMES, why REDUCE them? Don't people DESERVE to KEEP what they earn? And those who earn MORE _ALSO_ deserve to KEEP it!

The only TRUE FAIR TAX RATE is the SAME rate, whether your single, married, have kids, or earn MORE than the next guy. Seriously. And the end-result of HIGH TAXES on "the wealthy" are always twofold: a) "The Wealthy" always seem to have the resources to CIRCUMVENT it since often their income is NOT EARNED, and b) those who DO earn high incomes are likely to just say FUCK IT and either retire or stop WORKING THEIR ASSES OFF to get ahead.

High marginal tax rates on "the rich" are on those trying to BECOME the rich, not the ACTUAL rich. So your STUPID CLASS ENVY BULLSHIT is JUST a SOCIALIST PLOY to use CLASS ENVY to EMPOWER "them". Aka SOCISLISTS.

Whenever you LOWER tax rates on those who INVEST and CREATE BUSINESSES, you get more, uh, INVESTMENT and BUSINESSES. This means JOBS. And that's the point.

This is why Trump-economis WORKS, just like Reagonomics WORKED in the 80's, and if you don't actually remember SEEING it and LIVING it, then your revisionist history BULLSHIT is talking, not THE TRUTH.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Let's find out. China, just go ahead and ban ALL export to the USA. G'head. Do it.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Orange Fool

"But the his base consists of idiots"

No, it's actually the DEMO[N,C]RAT base that consists of idiots.

Why? because they actually SUPPORT "Quatro Perra" aka 'The Gang of Four' and their horrific socialist agenda, along with Pocahontas, Harris, Bernie, "Beto", and the rest of 'em. Biden actually looks MODERATE compared to "them". And yet, WHOM do the base support? That's right, the WACKOS.

Now as for Republo-crats that vote in RINOs, I might consider your opinion.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Orange Fool

you just don't like Trump. Your "feeling" (not thinking) on this matter is obvious.

Your opinion has been noted, and subsequently ignored.

If Trump cured cancer, paid everyone's taxes worldwide out of his own pocket, and did whatever every other nation and critic wanted him to do, you would STILL hate him.

It's like this, kinda (to a feminist): If a man says something, and there's no woman around to hear him, is he still "wrong" ?

US gives Chinese smuggler 37 months in the slammer for selling knock-off Apple kit

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Quality?

most likely they were BUILT BY TH#E SAME PEOPLE working FOR THE SAME COMPANY with THE SAME SUPPLY CHAIN on what is sometimes known as "4th shift", aka the "off the books" shift where they do all of the counterfeiting and cloning - usually for consumption WITHIN CHINA.

Hong Kong in the 80's was ALREADY known as a place where you could buy a camera [for example] and end up wtih a shell that didn't even open the shutter when you pressed the button. Member's Only, Adidas, Canon and Nikon, brands that were often faked at that time and sold in legit-looking stores in town.

"They warned us" about such things when I was there in 1985, as a member of the U.S. Navy. The recommendation was to ONLY purchase things at the China Fleet Club, which was run by the Royal Navy. I got a nice tailored suit and a good quality set of dishes there.

I'm sure that this reputation (for Hong Kong) has continued, and so it seems that Hong Kong was the pipeline for the counterfeit goods in this case. Too bad, I liked Hong Kong when I was there. bamboo scaffolding, construction still going on even though it was 1985, 4 years until the handoff to China.

In any case I have no doubt that the reason these "fakes" didn't look FAKE is that they probably weren't "fake", just NOT paying the royalties...

Lyft pulls its e-bike fleet from San Francisco Bay Area after exploding batteries make them the hottest seat in town

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: "San Jose – the heart of Silicon Valley"

I've lived in all of those places. You could NOT pay me enough money to live there again!

(In the 70's, it wasn't like it is today. It was actually ACCEPTABLE. This is because it was mostly ELECTRONICS and actual SILICON-related engineers, and military contracts, and cutting edge technology, not like the current "cloud" crowd dominating it today)

(NASA had a lot of presence there as well)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: That's what you get

samsung doesn't make the batteries, they most likely buy them from a company in China, since making the batteries requires polluting the environment, and it's ok to do that in China because they don't care.

So batteries built anyplace ELSE in the world willl cost a LOT more, because you need to TAKE PRECAUTIONS to avoid polluting the environment [whch is reasonable, I say]. but competition being what it is, the lowest price:quality always gets the sales and the supplier contracts.

So there ya go. Now Sammy had some issues with PINCHING their batteries (causing failure) but that was a final assembly problem. The batteries themselves probably performed "as designed". Whatever THAT implies, yeah.

I would actually blame a couple of other things, though. DISCHARGING a LiPo battery too far is one of the most dangerous things you can do to it, resulting in gassing and swelling and other chemical nastiness that you don't want to go into. If the battery control on those bikes does NOT prevent this, and ALSO prevent too-rapid charge rates [especially on heavily depleted batteries], you'll get explosions and fires and other things. Yeah, been there, done that. Worked with LiPo a LOT.

* one time I accidentally shorted a LiPo by connecting to a board I'd hand-built but didn't see a short across the battery, accidental solder bridge, in the visual inspection. Within 10 seconds the battery looked like a balloon. I disconnected it and ran it under a faucet to rapid-cool it, then it suddenly shrank down all wrinkly looking. Was completely unchargeable though, totally ruined. At least it didn't go *boom*

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Looks like the technology hasn't been properly studied

in a state KNOWN for it's over-litigation, a company did... WHAT?

Lithium _IS_ _THE_ _MOST_ _REACTIVE_ _METAL_ _ON_ _THE_ _PLANET_ Let it get outside of its protective container, and it WILL burst into flames and explode, reacting with LITERALLY everything!

That being said, who made the batteries? El Cheapo Battery Company, LTD from Ali Baba web site, right?

Yeah THAT'll keep costs down. And customers in pain.

Don't get me wrong, an electric bike service where you could "just grab one" sounds convenient, but here in San Diego we've had a LOT of problems with bike rental companies [the non-leccy kinds] and people leavng the things in (being kind) INCONVENIENT places.

People are (in general) pigs, in other words, without motivation to NOT be pigs. Self-disciplined people are generally an exception but not the norm.

As for San Jose California. I left that area in 1980 and would NEVER want to go back there. I understand it took a HARD TURN to the left, and the price of housing there is RIDICULOUS. Seriously, Silly Valley companies do NOT need to hire there, unless their investors ALSO own property [and make money off of ridiculous housing and rent prices]. And considering how bums and hobos and other "human debris" are CRAPPING IN THE STREETS and LIVING IN TENTS ON THE SIDEWALKS, who'd WANT to live there?

In any case, nothing beats a good old fashioned gasoline burning car or motorcycle. Seriously! And last I checked, the rate at which they burst into flames and cook your crotch is VERY small...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: RED HOTS ... RED HOTS ...

red hot... hot dogs?

Ouch. Reinstalling Windows 10 again? By 2020, a 'cloud download' may be all you need

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Who trusts a binary?

when you update the kernel in mint the old kernel usually shows up as a boot option in GRUB until you actually uninstall it manually. Last I checked, it was like that for all of the debian-based distros.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Who trusts a binary?

yeah I can do that with FreeBSD as well [and I do compile the kernel myself before updating]. But when it comes to the 3rd party software, building from source can take DAYS... [even on a super-mega-multi-core box]

But yeah if you want it built with your current shared libs and headers, as long as everything's consistent, build from source is probably the best way to go for reliability.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Linux

Re: "download a pristine copy of the OS from Microsoft's cloud servers"

"Microsoft considers that everything lives on C:"

REAL operating systems don't have a 'C' drive. Worth pointing out...

(when's the last time you used an 'A' or 'B' drive on your machine that has a 'C' drive, hmm???)

A REAL OS has a '/' to which everything mounts on a specfied directory aka 'mount point'. MUCH simpler.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Um, just NO!

WHAT options? last I checked, doesn't work for a VM or with ethernet

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Um, just NO!

"Yeah, how will that work if you're on a metered connection?"

already a major problem with the regular Win-10-nic FORCED updates.

Fix LibreOffice now to thwart silent macro viruses – and here's how to pwn those who haven't

bombastic bob Silver badge

Re: Sent a dodgy ODF?

if someone needs it formatted, I send PDF. But if it's something they need to edit I usually convert the ODF into a Word doc. It's more "compatible" that way.

NOt sure if word macros using LibreLogo would 'convert' back when you open it.