Posts by bombastic bob

Mozilla Firefox to begin slow rollout of DNS-over-HTTPS by default at the end of the month

Re: Hosts file

"fallback to the OS configured DNS if the DoH resolution fails"

And *HOW* much of an *IRRITATING* *UNNECESSARY* *DELAY* will *THAT* cause... ??? EVERY! STINKING! TIME! no doubt!!!

Re: Please explain?

"Dnssec on the other hand is a better well supported protocol"

from what I've read about it, yes. Still imperfect and NOT being supported by the root servers (last I heard/checked) but who knows, put AS MUCH EFFORT into getting DNSSEC to work properly, and UNIVERSAL SUPPORT at the client end, and now you have a reliable system that's not easily hijacked and still has decent performance... [from what I recall, reading about these things].

I should look at DNSSEC again, with my own server. The lack of wide support kept me from messing with it before. Maybe now it'll b better?

Re: Please explain?

"although in that narrow context it is an improvement"

I'm having a REALLY hard time seeing a central bloatware cloud bank, one that uses TCP+HTTPS+TLS, as an _IMPROVEMENT_ , over even hitting the root servers to look up the domain server and then sub-domains [as needed], as compared to the somewhat simple mechanism of CACHING DNS SERVERS (with UDP requests) which have been used since the very early 90's as I recall...

So please explain, HOW this improves things?

Re: Please explain?

"they could cook it all up as a SOAP transaction to get some real bloat going"

Awesome snark, well played!

Re: It's there for security

you can always set up your own DNS that does queries directly from the root servers...

DNS is what the internet is framed around. Without it, the internet BREAKS. Mozilla is attempting to do a hijacking of the internet's basic functionality. What makes them (and Cloudflare) *FEEL* so powerful? This change wasn't agreed upon, it wasn't proposed, it wasn't voted on etc.. There may have been documents submitted at one time but if MICROSOFT or GOOGLE were to do this, what would the reaction be?

How about "from now on all windows operating systems will do DNS 'like what WE want' and invoke Microsoft's DNS servers". Would *THAT* go over well? I doubt it.

WORST! FEATURE! CREEP! EVAR! [even worse than 2D FLATTY]

Re: Cloudflare?

DNS is the backbone of the internet.

Trying to change the rules like that isn't helping.

Re: Dubious

For MY network, MY DNS specifies domains differently for "inside the net" vs "outside the net".

Is their "DoH" gonna be able to FIGURE THAT ONE OUT correctly? or will CLOUDFLARE attempt to RESOLVE MY INTERNAL ADDRESSES ???

http://badmachine/ -> link hijack page

http://my-internal.lan --> link hijack page

uh, huh.

icon because, 'DoH' !!!

Re: Dubious

The fact that it's going through CLOUDFLARE is what bothers me...

Might as well go through Google's 8.8.8.8 resolver, which is better than an ISP "spelling error hijacker" resolver, which is better than a zillion other possibilities, BUT INFERIOR TO DOING THE QUERY YOURSELF FROM THE ROOT SERVERS.

This isn't REAL privacy. For that, you need TOR. And even THEN, it's STILL subject to MITM and hijacking.

None of this makes any sense.

For real this time, get your butt off Python 2: No updates, no nothing after 1 January 2020

Re: 20 years is a lot of time.

"Then why are they still using Python 2?"

because they WANT to! Nun-Ya-Business!

In some businesss you may find Win '9x still in use, particularly for controlling machinery that's >20 years old and there are *NO* device drivers written for that old machinery for Win-10-nic, if for no other reason that Micro-shaft's "driver signing" policies

And why is it YOUR business whether or not people CHOOSE TO USE SOMETHING THAT WORKS WITH OLD CODE THAT STILL DOES THE JOB ???

"UP"grading is _SO_ overrated... if not for the feature creep and API breakage, I'd do it more often.

(quite obviously I don't - I like stable systems that don't waste my time constantly maintaining them, and instead are fixed targets that don't keep moving like Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football.)

icon because, facepalm you'd actually say that

Re: How very PHP of them.

More like "How very MICROSOFT of them".

Re: The fork is already out there

in Greek, 'Pi' is actually pronounced "pee"

So it's PEEthon now?

Re: Can you explain?

Let's just all admit that Python, being an interpretive lingo with the capability of c language 'things' being called by it [not necessarily efficiently, check your loops] has about the same "power" as a SHELL SCRIPT or PERL SCRIPT that's pretty much doing the *same* *thing*...

It may be a bit more convenient for the programmer than writing a few "filter" utilities to do things in C and spit output to the shell or Perl [which is then further processed as needed] but it's really the same *kind* of thing.

And last I checked, shell (but not so much Perl, these days) has better BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY

Or you COULD just write it all in 'C'... yeah not THAT hard and once you get used to it, you'll say things like "why did I EVER use Python for THAT???"

"Fortunately that device has been discontinued so we might be able to upgrade to something better."

Got, LInux?

"still trying to get someone to care enough to give developers to update our Django 1.3, Python 2.6 sites to Python 2.7."

Actually using Django... (and trying to maintain it!)

You have my pity.

Business PC sales up as suits flee looming end of support for Windows 7

Re: The death of the PC?

when it dies you repair it and keep the same OS (7) on it, unless you install something like Linux or FreeBSD.

Re: The death of the PC?

desktop isn't dead. "new computer sales" are not the same as "user base". And when Win-10-nic is pretty much 'the only game in town' as far as a LOT of people are concerned, their likelihood to replace working Windows 7 hardware with "functionally not as fast" Win-10-nic is much lower, hence the PERCEPTION that the desktop is dead, when it really isn't.

Re: "Pro" for business? Hardly

for anything else, where Win-10-nic is not needed, but WINDOWS is needed, find an old 7 machine and build a VM of the OS, then run the VM in virtualbox (or whatever) hosted by a LINUX OS.

Windows 7 in a VM o a Linux host works prettry well. Also FreeBSD host. But *NOT* the other way around...

(and you don't do your web surfing on the windows VM)

Re: Keeping Win7, can pry it out of my cold dead hands...

"if your time is so critical then please ask your company to at least consider replacing those mechanical HDDs with SSDs"

Blah blah blah. It was a VERY NEW Dell "all in one" (where it's a touch screen with wireless kb and mouse etc.) and I'm pretty sure it has an SSD. I'm not responsible for procurement of computer hardware. I _do_ know that Linux works VERY well on a slightly older Dell model where I uninstalled Win-10-nic because I needed a Linux box [and it has an SSD and a regular hard drive in it - hard drive got /home, SSD got the rest of the OS]. So I'd say the hardware is JUST fine. It's the OS - Win-10-nic.

Strike 1! Strike 2! Strike 3! Yer, OUT! [a little baseball analogy]

See, I _KNEW_ that Win-10-nic FANBOIS would say things like this!

A big fat thumbs DOWN for the "did not ask" and "made an ass out of U and ME" and got it WRONG [of course] which was predictable but still...

Re: Not only am I going to continue using Windows 7 on my main PC...

"I haven't downloaded or installed any Windows updates since 2016."

The last time I did 'windows update' was when I installed 7 on a reconditioned machine that I'd just bought on E-bay, while I still could... and I ran all of the updates through my manual "do not install these" list and left out a BUNCH of them (GWX was still a problem then), and after that, I've left it 'as-is'. NO updates.

Why do I need them when they ATTEMPT TO INSTALL WIN-10-NIC? Why do I need them WHEN THEY INSTALL SPYWARE? And so on.

If I don't surf the web from a windows box, I doubt I even EVAR need updates, unless there's some REAL problem to solve.

And I'm very much considering putting all of that into a VM, and running it with LINUX AS THE HOST, for whenever I need anything that requires windows...

Re: Keeping Win7, can pry it out of my cold dead hands...

ACK on the title. "upgrading" (to Win-10-nic) is HIGHLY overrated.

Worst Win-10-nic story evar: Today, my supervisor with a semi-on-site contract couldn't use his computer today. WHY? Win-10-nic "updating". For 6 HOURS. Finally at 2Pm it was "usable" again, but still doing 100% disk access and 25% to 100% CPU while scanning things.

"Oh but all you had to do" is what you Win-10-nic FANBOIS are saying, right?

Tell that to people who USE COMPUTERS TO DO WORK, where the OS is not the "End All" "Be All" TARGET of their daily activities!!!

Basically THAT machine was DEAD between 7AM and 1PM. It was "sort of usable" after 1 PM, when the updates were done and it actually LOGGED IN. That's 6 HOURS of NON-USABLE TIME. The 1 hour between 1PM and 2PM was SO full of maxed-out CPU and disk activity, though, that it was STILL unusable for any practical purpose...

There is _NO_ excuse for Micro-shat's "operating system" for ANYTHING LIKE THAT to EVAR HAPPEN!

And we ALL know it.

Got, Linux? [I _did_ offer to install it]

Let's recap reCAPTCHA gotcha: Our cunning AI can defeat Google's anti-bot tech, say uni boffins

Re: Catcha is the most annoying piece of crap ever

and WORSE, if you make the photos SO HARD TO READ that you CANNOT SEE THE OBJECTS, and you have to CLICK ON MULTIPLE SCREENS to get past it... kinda like NOW.

I had to use CAPTCHA on a California government web site the other day. IT REALLY PISSED ME OFF.

Find all of the traffic lights - ok a walk signal, obvious on the pole, is it a "traffic light" or not. Then there's one WAY off in the distance, do I included THAT square too? Seems like including it GETS YOU ANOTHER CAPTCHA because YOU FAILED IT.

@#$% captcha is the BANE OF TEH INTARWEBS. A _BOT_ that solves it BETTER THAN I CAN would be a WELCOME PLUGIN to my browser!!!

Cortana makes your PC's heart beat faster: Windows 10 update leaves some processors hot under the cooler

Re: My processor was at 60%...

I noticed a REALLY long time ago that Win-10-nic (paticularly UWP and 'The Meto' CRapps) was a CPU waster. Often (running in a VM) during startup I'd see two or more of these CRapps attempting to communicate with each other (including the 'start thing' and presumably search and Cortana), only to SPIN on CPU utilization at 100% while wasting wall time.

I tracked it down (somewhat anecdotally, some experimentation) to the use of 'instantly returns' timing on synchro resource checks and polling of some kind, things that are supposed to put you into an IDLE wait state while waiting, but don't.

Specifically, like WaitForObjectEx with a 0 timeout... or Sleep(0)... or 'yield()' calls. DECADES ago I discovered that if you have a polling loop (including message loops that do background things) you can NOT specify a 0 timeout, or you'll spin at 100% CPU usage.

For UWP and Win-10-nic "they" apparently stopped using a standard message loop, and apparently use something inside ".Not" or a UWP core of some kind. THIS is where the problem is!

/me points out that THIS problem was solved by ME decades ago, for Windows '9x even, 2k had the problem, XP a bit less so, and it re-surfaced with UWP/Metro CRapps because "our turn now" and they POOCH SCREWED IT.

Re: Agile !

FRAgile you mean

The top three attributes for getting injured on e-scooters? Having no helmet, being drunk or drugged, oddly enough

Re: Scooter stoopid

Some local insight into this... it's been a topic for local radio in San Diego.

the e-scooters have been a plague in San Diego for a while now. The biggest problem is how they're just "left wherever" when people are done with them, and the rental companies need to pick them up to avoid them being scattered all over, etc..

But here's a scenario I was thinking of..

OK you drove to a bar, had too much, realize your'e WAY too drunk to drive, but instead of calling a cab ($50 ride, let's say) you GRAB A SCOOTER, thinking "it's ok to ride a scooter drunk, it's not a DUI".

Anyway, I have to say it's better to just hurt yourself in a drunken accident than to take others and/or their property with you. That being said, unlicensed operation of these scooters may simply have to end if their use becomes ABuse.

So far San Diego has banned them completely on college campuses and at the beach boardwalk [as I recall], and may ban them altogether if the rental companies can't get the "soft GPS wall" system that disables the scooters in those areas to work properly.

YouTube's radicalizing Alt-right trolls and Facebook's recruiting new language boffins

"click bait"

a nice summary of alt-right. good job!

Re: Alt Right is PC for Rascist, lets call them racist to be clear

"From my point of view, libertarianism is one of the dumbest things to come about in recent years."

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Keep in mind that true libertarianism is to minimize government intervention into your life, not eliminate it. So a true libertarian would also believe that everyone should mind his OWN business, live and let live, and NOT be a pain in the butt to the rest of society (like imposing his "rights" upon others, getting all bent over use of pronouns or "offensive" terms, demanding all of society bend to political correctness, yotta yotta).

In other words, I think libertarianism is that natural human state when people are behaving in a SANE manner. Laws and regulations are only necessary to prevent abuses. when INSTEAD they become "impose the will of the ruler upon the ruled", such laws should be ELIMINATED. This is what libertarianism is all about.

It assumes that people are basically decent law abiding citizens who want the best for their own lives and the lives of their family. It assumes that people will behave and work towards their own bests interests when the consequences for bad behavior have NOT been eliminated nor the bad behavior excused. It also assumes that crime should be punished, that regulations should be enforced, and that society is more orderly when a minimal amount of regulation is present to ensure it.

Anything other than what I just said, unless I forgot something important, isn't libertarianism. It's something else, like anarchy or liberalism or social activism. Or maybe it's just the pot-heads wanting legal marijuana, and not caring about anything else. Whatever. Those people are LOONS anyway.

So yeah it might help to understand what libertarianism really is BEFORE saying it's "unintelligent" or "the dumbest thing" etc.. Because, chances are, you actually want what I just described...

Re: Alt Right is PC for Rascist, lets call them racist to be clear

I don't think you fully understand this.

If you were to spend time reading alt-right posts on various boards, maybe 4chan's "/pol" (which is not pure alt-right, but has a lot of alt-right in it) you'll see that many (or even most) people just say what they want for the shock value (or trolling). But sometimes a regular poster goes full-blown wacko IRL (it's happened a couple of times).

On youtube, I doubt you'll see more than the occasional pretenders and wannabes. The _real_ wackos end up arrested and make the 5PM news. Fortunately, not so many of those.

In My Bombastic Opinion, Alt-right is really just a reaction to the left's PC BULLYING. It'll stop when it's no longer "shocking". And when the trolling no longer works.

Call Windows 10 anything you like – Microsoft seems to

"How long until the rings become forks?"

A quote from a Robin Hood movie: "Use a spoon." "Why a spoon?" "It's dull, it'll hurt more."

(or something like that)

nobody has suggested SEMPRINI for the name, yet.

Re: "Naturally, all user data is wiped with this option"

"Why can Microsoft not understand that user data needs to be on its own partition ?"

(I put my user data on /home and depending on the system, it very well COULD be on a different partition)

For Micro-shat, you have to remember, it's not YOUR computer, it's THEIR computer, for which they now have complete control over updating and installing things.[even if you do not want it].

So by THEIR standards, you use that computer by THEIR grace, at THEIR whim, and from THEIR blessings upon you. You should bow down and worship, sing praises to their names, grovel at their feet, accept their ads without question, and buy their advertised merchandise. Or at least, that's how it appears (to me) for what they want and expect...

Yeah, yeah, PCs are dead? Ask Texan Mick and his Dell empire if that's the case

Re: Dell does do Linux Bob...

you're pointing out some of what I've observed - too many boxen don't have a "linux option"

Re: Win-10-nic driving SALES? Only because 7 support and IT people unreasonably ...

"subsidise the cost of the laptop by filling it up with paid-for crapware"

you DO have a point...

Re: Dell does do Linux Bob...

unfortunately, when I have looked at Dell in the past, they ONLY offered "linux as an option" on their MORE EXPENSIVE hardware. The bulk of the machines were WINDOWS ONLY.

That's the problem - perhaps I should have been more specific?

So I'd like them (basically) to offer Linux as an OPTION, for ALL machines that come pre-shipped with Win-10-nic on them, at a discount because NO win-10-nic tax payed to MICROSHAFT.

That's what I meant.

(had to use a lot of extra words to explain it, thought maybe most of this was obvious, but oh well)

Win-10-nic driving SALES? Only because 7 support and IT people unreasonably fear alternatives...

It's time for Dell to PROMOTE LINUX. SAME hardware as Win-10-nic machines, but with Linux, and $50 CHEAPER because NO LICENSE FEE.

Dell: do THAT, and you'll see REAL success!!

Because the PC is _NOT_ dead. It's also NOT a slab, NOT a phone, NOT a touchie-feelie "device". It's a mouse, keyboard, and display, from which ACTUAL WORK can be done. And NEARLY ALL of it could be done with LINUX as the OS.

Developer reconsiders npm command-line ad caper after outcry

Re: Welcome to the 90s

Ok out of curiosity I found the thing in order to confirm my suspicions. I was VERY close...

It's a worthless utility that could be done by other existing utilities, except they won't have the DRACONIAN WRONG ATTITUDE like THIS (from the docs):

"I disagree with rule X, can you change it?

"No. "

That kinda says it all.

he's forcing Javascript code style, makes a point about "bike shedding" to justify the DICTATOR attitude about programming style (he also uses K&R style, WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!) for his so-called "standard" and then STOPS PEOPLE from DOING ANYTHING DIFFERENT (if they use his USELESS tool at any rate).

FreeBSD has the 'indent' utility. what more would you need??

no _WONDER_ he had the CHUTZPAH to put ADS in the command line! It's the *SAME* kind of thinkiing that has brought us (*ahem* finger-crack)

a) 2D FLATTY McFLATFACE FLATSO [and take away ALL user customization and alternatives]

b) ADWARE built into the OS

c) TRACK YOU javascript *EVERYWHERE* (no we're not violating privacy you AGREED to this)

d) monolithic scripting libraries "you must use" or you're accused of having "spaghetti code"

e) Australis

f) Change for the Sake of Change™ because WE FEEL™

etc.

worth a nuke explosion icon. I _HATE_ this kind of CRAP

Re: Stop moaning

or, fork it under a compatible license (suggested earlier as "tell him to fork off") without the ads

Re: Threat

good one!

Re: Maybe the expectation of making money off JavaScript should be adjusted?

merely blocking script from the ads and those monolithic CDN "libraries" would be a good start.. a utility that successfully does THAT through a constantly maintained BLACKLIST might be worth a subscription.

Re: Welcome to the 90s

or in the case of that (no doubt unnecessary) "standard" javascript thing [is there NOT already ENOUGH JavaScript POLLUTION out there already already?] a way to monetize something WE CAN DO WITHOUT.

OK admit NOT having seen it, but 2 words "javascrit" and the name "standard" tells me that it's probably some B.S. "captain obvious wrote it" TRIVIAL module that can be completely OBLITERATED without causing damage to the open source world... (am I right?)

This is what happens when the SHEEPLE become complacent about OPERATING SYSTEMS SERVING UP ADVERTISEMENTS (you know, like Win-10-nic and all of that adware on phones). Next stop, the TV screen like you see in Idiocracy, which is like a 50" screen but only about 25" is actual content - ADS ALL AROUND with moving pictures and "click me" flashing etc. to the point where you just put the blinders on and ignore it all anyway.

From the article: many people who maintain open source projects have complained that companies and individuals take advantage of their labor and profit from it without giving something back

Open source has SEVERAL benefits to the author, some not so obvious:

a) proof of work/ability - people can see how you code, how you engineer things

b) public project management - if you manage one, your management abilities are on display

c) indirect payment - if you write open source, and you use open source, assume that your efforts of making open source are "paying" for the open source stuff you use already. You're "contributing".

that aside from just making something useful avaiilble for others. I've been trying to put trivial utilities online for others to use as sample code, even. At some point someone may find them useful, even if it's just sample code. And if I'm not doing anything special with those utilities, might as well put them on github or wherever and say "here are some useful things, use however you want".

But injecting ads in a COMMAND LINE UTILITY? That is WORSE than NAGWARE!!!

A big fat FAIL to the author who DARED to inject ads into a command line utility! SHAME! (and I bet your not-so-important library is just TRIVIAL CAPTAIN OBVIOUS stuff... without me even looking at it!)

Clutching at its Perl 6, developer community ponders language name with less baggage

Re: Why exactly is Perl any worse than Python? : About efficiency.

Unless you're writing a compiler from scratch, you don't need flex/bison to parse log files.

agreed. But I wouldn't use those libs for a compiler either. Bloatware. unnecessary.

parsing text files with a pair of pointers is easy. Typically I'll write a function like this:

char *p1 = the_buffer;

char *p2;

while(*p1)

{

while(*p1 && *p1 <= ' ') p1++; // ltrim

p2 = p1;

while(*p1 > ' ') p1++; // end of term

// pass p1 and p2 to a function that copies or compares

// if((p1 - p2)==5 && !strncmp(p2, "thing", 5)) <-- string 'thing' is first term

etc.

not hard. look for '\n' to terminate a line. in fact, simple. pretty bullet proof, too. You're welcome. I do this a LOT.

you can also use scanf if you only want simple parsing.

if you need something more complex, you can parse columns and/or quoted strings pretty easily. I've even witten a full blown XML parser. It could fit on a microcontroller if it had to. I've seen similar kinds of simple parsers used for JSON [not written by me] so there are others out there doing this sort of thing. The fact is that string parsing is NOT hard, there are basic techniques you can use (like what I did above, the 2 pointer method), and you can use standard libc functions and pointers to parse just about ANYTHING that's text. Switch to mbcs functions if you need that for UTF8, no big deal.

no need for bloatware, OR Python. Or special Perl modules, either.

''awk' does a good job too.

Re: Why exactly is Perl any worse than Python? : About efficiency.

"C is efficient as far as the machine is concerned. As far as the developer's time, though?"

most of th3e time I can crank out C code faster than Python or Perl. I am admittedly not that good at Perl.

For those things that can be done with a shell script, though, I normally do "that". And I've been known to write my own quicky utilities for that shell script to invoke, for special case things that aren't already part of the operating system.

So "the developer's time", at least if it's ME, isn't hampered by using C. In fact, on my resume I *BRAG* about being faster than most people and getting things DONE. And I do. And I use 'C' most of the time.

Re: "but here in the Unix world we like simplicity"

@AC - I don't know which parts to quote to give an example why I give you a ZILLION DOWNVOTES but full-quoting the entire post is kinda dumb.

So "everything in that post of yours" - a big fat THUMBS DOWN

You obviously DO NOT USE the things you appear to act like "an expert" on. I bet your C coding skills are 101-level at best.

Re: add a proper string type in C

Only char arrays."

which is JUST FINE and MORE FLEXIBLE, especially when you're not LAZY and/or spoiled by Java or BASIC.

mastering strings in C/C++ is *SIMPLE*. I've been doing it for YEARS. DECADES even. More than TWO decades.

I suppose this means we need more COMPETENT programmers in the world...

maybe it should be like CW for HAM operators. Code in C only until you're competent in it.

Re: Why exactly is Perl any worse than Python?

"If a professional deems C to be the language required for a project, let her use C"

grammar note: the correct pronoun to use, when the sex of the subjwect is not known, is 'he' (as a subject) or 'him' (as an object). If you don't want to specify a sex, "the programmer" would work, even though it has an awkward style.

In any case, using 'she' sounds like SJW/political-correctness *EXCREMENT* and if, in fact, it *IS* politically correct *EXCREMENT*, it should be shunned, ridiculed, etc. until he who uttered/wrote such an abomination is COMPLETELY EMBARRASSED.

there. I said it.

(but I agree, allow the programmer to use whatever language HE is familiar with in order to provide a useful and maintainable solution within the shortest amount of time and least amount of effort, balanced against reliability).

Re: Why exactly is Perl any worse than Python?

"Python allows for pretty elegant code"

read: cryptic, difficult to maintain code that only works because you were lucky

GIMP open source image editor forked to fix 'problematic' name

Re: Divide and rule

"I could definitely see how a school *may* be put off."

no, no, NO! Don't let *THEM* have a foothold in your mind!

It's all just another big, fat, manipulative LIE. Wrapped in false "caring". Don't buy it. Your life will be better NOT being hypersensitive about what MIGHT offend.

Re: Divide and rule

"you are likely to be uncomfortable suggesting software that has a name that some may find offensive"

Then, let's change it to SEMPRINI

/me ducks

Hey, it's 2019. Quit making battery-draining webpages – say makers of webpage-displaying battery-powered kit

Re: Good luck that

"Lost fight, it is."

So you do WHAT, roll over and GET RAPED by it? "Don't hurt me bad". Right...

At least SWEAT HARD so they don't enjoy it... yeah, make it HARD for them. Fight at every turn. Kick, scream, bite, make ugly noises, send complaints to everyone in charge, And comment everywhere.

Re: Do you like money?

/me hands you a clue-bat, a clue-by-four, and a cat-5-o-nine-tails. For emergency use.

You have my pity.

Re: An easy way to save power...

this would be great, if you change "over a 14.4k dial-up connection" to "so that you COULD use a 14.4k dial-up connection if you wanted to".

Imagine the bandwidth savings! What, YOU never get cell carrier "overage" problems? way too many people DO and this is STILL a big problem - bandwidth waste.

all of that script-fluff in web pages and inefficient formatting - TOTALLY NOT NECESSARY.

Re: There's little incentive to do this

yeah this is all "Captain Obvious" stuff, stuff _I_ have been saying (along with many others) for a VERY, VERY, LOOONG TIME!

Web sites are TOO scripty, waste TOO much bandwidth AND CPU AND MEMORY by hauling in (and worse, making use of) generic monolithic CSS and JS source, and *ADS* are the *WORST* offenders!

Things like 'Materialize' - this is the *WORST* of it. Things like JQuery come in second, I'd say. BOTH should be NUKED FROM ORBIT and NEVER seen again!

Now, being able to DISABLE specific "features" might help, especially if Apple decides that they are PRIVACY ISSUES...