* Posts by JLV

2252 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Mar 2013

NASA lights humongous rocket that goes nowhere ... until 2019

JLV
Joke

>twice, 12 hours apart

So, $2B per launch then?

Tired: Java. Desired: Node.js. Retired: The suggestion a JavaScript runtime is bonkers

JLV
Boffin

Saner JS kinda requires Node

Well...

I am not sure I'd shoot for a whole dev stack in JS. JS is actually fairly elegant, and I much prefer it to Java's pomposity and limited capabilities - not being able to pass functions as variables, hello, 1960 called.

But JS's also one language where I feel like conceding the point to the compiler fan club that compilers "solve your problems". They don't, but JS has gone too far in the opposite direction, that of never failing. For example, it'd be nice, when you import a mistyped inexistent member from another module, that it would throw an exception at that point. Not JS, no. Let's leave you to hunt that bug for a few hours. You could mitigate that somewhat with unit tests, but js unittest frameworks suffer from being too many and also front end code needs to run in browsers which complicates things.

Back to Node. Thing is, whatever your backend is written in (Django here) if you want to deploy cleaner browser JS, using basic building blocks found in other languages like module imports and normal classes, you have to translate from JS 6 (or Typescript) down to JS 5 which doesn't have them. And that's where Node.js is needed, to host something like Webpack+Babel to transpile your code on the server side into the JS all browsers understand. It works, surprisingly well and can provide additional services like linting

Vue.js, an awesomely simple, fast, and capable JS front end framework, let's me be way more productive and solid than just HTML 5 and plain js. Night and day. It's a super elegant system that makes the like of Swing seem like something a committee of French philosophers and anal retentive Soviet bureaucrats would design while on a vodka tasting tour. Blows away Python GUI toolkits, which traditionally have been one of Python's weak points.

But its full power requires JS 6 and so do many of its more popular brethren like Angular and React.

Hence... Node.js, like it or not. You're still stuck with JS's infuriating inability to fail early and reasonably, but much better overall.

Adobe will kill Flash by 2020: No more updates, support, tears, pain...

JLV

Re: I'm sad to see Flash go

Waltz with Bashir, awesome animated Israeli anti-war film about the Sabra massacre in Lebanon, is partially done w Flash. Very nice look it gives too.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltz_with_Bashir

JLV
Happy

Hallelujah

China crams spyware on phones in Muslim-majority province

JLV

Re: Spyware and Intelligence Gathering.....

>Prole entertainment straight from the Eric Blair textbook.

Hush now, be nice.

Couple of decades yet before we're ready for "Ow! My Balls!” Or am I too optimistic?

re. China. This is interesting. When you see what our up and coming world superpower is up to with its own citizens. Add in the Spratley Islands and the lack of real popular legitimacy of its government system which doesn't even really believe in Communism anymore, just power. Mix in a dollop of well-justified mistrust of Western powers and sense of past persecutions. Play the foreign and domestic enemies card.

Hope they do sort themselves out into a more mature political system by 2040s or so. This is scary, the USSR was much nastier but had limited economic potential.

Canadian sniper makes kill shot at distance of 3.5 KILOMETRES

JLV

Iirc the unit of one of the Canadian snipers in question, came under friendly fire by an USAF F16 a few weeks month later and 4 of them were killed.

This, 2002, was an early indicator of US trigger happiness as the pilot was reportedly dosed, as per policy, on stimulants and had no real reason to engage unidentified infantry outside of his designated area.

No disrespect intended to US airmen, but early US high command policy in Afghanistan was focused way too much on body counts and did not consider the drawbacks of civilian casualties in a COIN setting. This - and the willful neglect* of nation building of the Bush administration - probably did quite a bit to get Afghanistan to where it is today, despite the sacrifices of so many brave soldiers.

* read Douglas Feith's War and Decision (2007) and he pretty much brags about they weren't dumb enough to nation-build (along with bragging how great a job they did in Afghanistan).

JLV
Headmaster

>Suppose our putative Taliban

Be more impressed if you didn't confuse Afghanistan (Taliban) with Iraq. Also, Talibs and ISIS are actually fighting each other in Afghanistan so not that interchangeable.

BTW, rather impressed that our gov (Canada) decided to forego the token 6 or so jets we were bombing ISIS with before and send out more useful (and politically risky) boots on the ground instead. Godspeed and keep safe to our soldiers there.

JLV

>didn't duck

That may not always make military sense depending on the sophistication of your troops, your enemy's and your CnC capabilities.

Consider what happens if a leader gets taken out. That quite possibly will demoralize and/or take out decision-making capability for the entire unit.

Read up on the successes of the Germans in early Eastern front. Turns out that, at least for tanks, the Germans could easily spot and identify the unit leader (only ones equipped with radios). Take them out early and the whole unit would mill around and remain as shooting ducks. The rank and file weren't trained for initiative and they probably feared an NKVD bullet if they retreated.

Ditto life expectancies for Lieutenants @ D-Day, with nicely marked up helmets. Or Lieutenants landing in hot LZs in Vietnam.

OTOH, the British armed forces have always relied heavily on their NCOs, it's what makes them good. So the officers could afford it, to an extent. Russia for example, is traditionally very light on NCOs, it's basically officers and soldiers.

In the week Uber blew up, Netflix restates 'No brilliant jerks' policy

JLV

Re: Well they already cut themselves off from a big portion of the "market"

Alright, Christian, I'll bite.

What's your point, exactly? They are not selling you products and limiting your use of them. They are renting digital products and making sure you can't use them outside of the rental context. Why would they risk having rentals be duplicated? For what purpose? Which of your rights, exactly, are being infringed, outside of you not agreeing to rent their products on their terms?

This is very different from buying a digital product outright and then finding out that you, as the owner, cannot use it on your terms. Yes, we are all familiar with that crap, including the music industry exec some decades back who was trying to argue you'd have to rebuy your music on tapes/mp3s to listen in your car, even though you had bought the CDs. Or Sony's rootkit DRM. Or sundry others. Yes, that's crap. Doesn't make your complaint any more relevant, in the specific case of a rental. Which you can terminate at any time and does not afford you any rights past that termination.

I'd somewhat get it if you specifically stated you were concerned about the problems their approach causes when customers want to use Linux as a viewing platform and the clash between that chosen platform and DRM. But you give no indication that you are anywhere as nuanced as that in your reasoning.

Oh, and, btw, this article had nothing to do with DRM, so you're just being tiresome, as per usual ;-) Me, I rather like Netflix and I also think their IT approach has been quite innovative and they don't mind sharing (ex: https://github.com/Netflix/SimianArmy/wiki/Chaos-Monkey, https://github.com/Netflix).

p.s. >particularly in the higher class

Not full of yourself in any way, are you?

Tesla's driverless car software chief steps down

JLV
Trollface

Re: I think Uber might have a vacancy.

>destroy it

I hear Marissa's available

JLV

Re: Not a good fit...

Quite possibly true.

Yet, he's got some major mojo - Swift is one thing but he was also the guy behind the Clang compiler (the one challenging gcc) and LLVM.

Doubt he left/got left cuz he couldn't code. But as another poster said - odd choice of role/area for him.

F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen on IoT: If it uses electricity, it will go online

JLV

Re: Windows 10 S secure?

>No 3rd party could ever hope

Are you challenging us, punk?

Signed: Adobe Inc.

'OK, everyone. Stop typing, this software is DONE,' said no one ever

JLV

& 13.1T$

JLV
Trollface

Re: I cannot agree more.

>low memory use

That musta been looooong ago.

FF user myself.

Stack Clash flaws blow local root holes in loads of top Linux programs

JLV

Re: Security 101: If they're sitting at the computer...

Hmmm, no that is not entirely true, though there is fair bit of wisdom in what you say.

Unix was brought up in "adversarial" university environments with logged in basic users sometimes sorely tempted to mischief (cf Morris Worm). It was always meant for multiuser use and had segregation of privileges built-in for example through all permissions system. So the system is intended to resist hacks by low-priv users.

Most of the time, it seems to work as designed, though letting in a _skilled_ evil user certainly can't be too good an idea, as per your remark.

That's in stark contrast to the Windows' original I-am-the-master-of-the-machine model. Still recommended by all some of the cluelessentsia that insist that disabling the (insufficiently strict and way too wolf-crying, imho) UAC is the way to go. I'd require some convincing that a std (desktop) Windows can be locked down well, and accounts fully isolated, by a moderately competent user. But I'd expect a Linux/BSD/Macos to mostly have it right from the get go, gross fuckup from configurator aside. Safe, again, from a low-mid level adversary, not Barnaby Jack.

So this is a screwup.

Despite some strident commentards' opinions to the contrary, there is no inherent anti-vulnerability magic fairy dust in Open Source. But at least you can be reasonably assured that this particular hole will be patched when all the libraries go over their code with a fine toothed comb. That's in stark contrast to the outcome in some other ecosystems where bug follows bug follows bug. Still, even OSS can't fully compensate for flawed approaches cough... OpenSSL ...cough...

I am sure someone is going to follow with a "see: Linux sucks! Windows rules!", but that's not drawing entirely the right lessons from this case. It is however a reminder to be vigilant, always. As users, as coders.

Virtual reality audiences stare straight ahead 75% of the time

JLV

>the guy on the left shoot first

Nah, Han shot first

JLV

>getting people interested in movies can best be accomplished by making good movies.

Oh, I dunno. Bearing in mind the endless recycling of sequels, lame SF and ever more numerous superhero movies, I think that's a message that would still be worth repeating.

Mine's the coat with Road Warrior, Serenity, Superbad and Silence of the Lambs in the pocket.

Report estimates cost of disruption to GPS in UK would be £1bn per day

JLV
Trollface

Re: Past!

>Fail !

Might be for the best if yer driving...

Fancy buying our aircraft carrier satnav, Raytheon asks UK

JLV
Trollface

Re: Himself? Herself?

>F35s ought to be male

I don't want to be labelled sexist, but no, the ladies can have those.

You're welcome.

You'll soon be buying bulgur wheat salad* from Amazon, after it swallowed Whole Foods

JLV

Re: Not sure I'd call Whole Foods a luxury retailer

Or just an expensive-for-what-it-is retailer.

Seriously, I don't mind the occasional pricey foodie splurge. High end cheese, pate, meat, pastry, fresh prawns.... You know those stores. You know the stuff that tastes so good but is likely not super healthy and nukes your budget.

Whole Foods has never ever tempted me the least. The food might be healthy, and certainly $$$$$, but it's a gouge for hipster dupes and tree huggers and hardly very sinfully tasty. Easy to resist :)

Canada has only 13 WHs and Vancouver's stuck with nearly half of them :( Then again we're also carrying an unfair proportion of this country's hipsters and vegans. Anybody want some?

JLV
Happy

odd match

One of the leaders of competitive pricing buys the dark high priest of customer gougery.

Two possible outcomes:

a) we'll start seeing Earth-Aware (TM) VMs on AWS. An extra $3.50/hr because of the rain forest, even as they probably start buying all-coal leccy. Amazon Books only carries Deepak Chopra. MP3s only Yanni.

b) Whole Foods becomes more reasonable, less of a "lifestyle statement" and actually sells useful stuff for fair prices. They stop over-weighing their items in order to rip you off. They don't peel oranges and then pack them in plastic. They don't sell "discounted" organic avocados at twice the price of other places' organic avocados. Big changes for them.

On balance, I'd expect Amazon to - (b). If Whole Foods is branded 'Amazon', their usual shenanigans would damage the Amazon brand for normal people. So a cautious hope that a fairly useless retailer might possibly change their stripes. And Amazon does have brilliant supply chain management to make it work.

Plus, maybe all the hipsters will leave my area! (hence the choice of icon).

Software dev bombshell: Programmers who use spaces earn MORE than those who use tabs

JLV
Trollface

Sheesh, no wonder no world peace...

If we're still having religious wars over stuff like this?

Do whatever your project/employer/language mandates. Or whatever _you_ like. Let the others do what they like/have to. Problem solved.

Next - programmers using Vim outearn Emacs. Or not.

Lockheed, USAF hold breath as F-35 pilots report hypoxia

JLV
Trollface

...an empty ejection seat

But it wouldn't break any necks

Five Eyes nations stare menacingly at tech biz and its encryption

JLV

Re: We need to communicate risks better

But that has still shifted the debate from "trust us, it'll be safe, there's a way" to "you have to give up some security, not _just_ privacy, because we need it for public safety". Let them make an honest case for it if they can.

A very different debate from "enough is enough, only bad guys benefit from strong encryption" which is where so many of our leaders are starting from.

JLV

We need to communicate risks better

Starting to talk about encryption math loses everyone. Most of us too, I assume. Let's make it simpler.

You want to leave a key by your house, in case you lose your key. The stereotypical "key under the mat".

There is no way to do that safely if you assume many smart bad guys will spend a lot of time trying to find that key. It's a weakness and it can be used to break in.

People understand that intuitively and we need to force proponents of backdoors to explain how it's different, even as all the experts in that field say it really isn't.

JLV

Re: Trade deals with the EU

Fairly specious example. They don't have much of a choice, as states, in India, do they? Can't do any better?

Surely there must be one case, somewhere, sometime, when fair independent multiparty elections were held in a fully independent Communist nation state. Can't think of one, but...

Maybe Nicaragua, not sure how that went.

JLV

Re: Privacy of a Trrrst?

>which in it's purist form works for everyone however it has never been applied in that sense because there are greedy people that enjoy the capitalist trough.

Always the same refrain with Communists (and, no, not falling for US fallacy that socialism==communism): give us another chance cuz Mao, Pol Pot, NK, Stalin, Chavez were "not the real thing".

About the only less than toxic implementation to date has been Cuba's and even that's hardly been an unmitigated success story though at least they only imprison people and avoid shooting them. And have enviable social metrics, by some measures.

If it's so great how come they never submit to a ballot after coming to power, eh?

Tosser.

Marissa! Mayer! out! as! Yahoo!-Verizon! closes!

JLV

Is it gonna be Oath! or Oath henceforth in El Reg?

Sincerely hoping for the latter! though no coverage of it would suit me fine as well :)

Marissa's tenure was less glorious than initially predicted though, to be fair, the patient was terminally ill irrelevant by the time she showed up. Still, 23M$, not a bad payout for not achieving much is it?

Congressman drafts COVFEFE Act to preserve Trump's Twitter tantrums

JLV

Re: It's a good idea

Agree. Though I was a bit surprised at first, assuming that it was a Rep initiative and thinking they'd want his "pearls of wisdom" swept under the carpet pronto.

Being a Dem's idea makes more sense and too bad he's just having a laugh because, for better or worse, this is emerging as a policy comm channel.

Btw, whatever happened to Big John? No one around to praise the Orange One anymore. Eadon'd out?

Swedish school pumps up volume to ease toilet trauma

JLV

Let it go -

Dancing with myself - that music can cover other noises than farts ;-)

Has riddle of the 1977 'Wow!' signal finally been cracked? Maybe...

JLV
Coat

alone or not alone

'Alone except for only 1 other' is the really terrifying scenario.

Mine's the coat w a copy of 'Dark Forest' in it.

Windows 10 Creators Update preview: Lovin' for Edge and pen users, nowt much else

JLV
Trollface

>myriad language settings in Windows 10 have found a UK setting somewhere

and this is one of the things that I have less and less patience with on Windows: hunting down/figuring settings and configurations.

Control Panel? Group Policy? right click on Computer? Charms? System Properties? Direct Registry tweak? Sacrifice chicken?

Windows used to be easy for beginners. Now it's really only easy for people who either configure all the time or those who never bother to do it.

Google up a Windows 8 Wifi setting howto and you may very well find that 8.1 does it differently, let alone 10.

Getting to the point where Powershell is probably easier.

Getting a consistent, unified, stable and predictable way to configure Windows would remove huge annoyances. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be consistent, unified....

Of course, this being MS, it brings to mind https://xkcd.com/927/ and it would also be nice if they ended on the right side of https://xkcd.com/1778/ instead of on the left.

Break crypto to monitor jihadis in real time? Don't be ridiculous, say experts

JLV

You can, as long as you advise them 100% of the time that they are 100% correct 100% of the time.

A Yes Man seems to be the qualification required for crypto expertise in some gov circles. And it is worrying that so many of our leaders have not yet grasped the very basic concept that you can't have safe backdoors guaranteed to be unusable by criminals through some magic fairy dust. Wherever else you stand on the surveillance/privacy divide wrt terrorism prevention, how can supposedly smart people just not understand that basic fact? Or take the word of the experts in the field?

The open source community is nasty and that's just the docs

JLV

>Behind closed doors, in the dark underworld of proprietary software

links, please.

I know, I know, it's customary for each of the parties on the open/proprietary divide to make bold claims for their software quality and its ability to cure cancer and save the world. Still, you have to remember that in the proprietary world, most of this would be happening in a company, with an HR department on the lookout for being sued if they can be proved to have tolerated a toxic workplace. Sure, lots of people still are very nasty to each other in all the standard corporate backstabbing ways that have existed since time immemorial. But there is a also a direct downside to being found out and reprimanded.

That's a bit like claiming that email communication between parties that know each other is likely to be as discourteous as commentards are sometimes towards each other, safe behind the walls of anonymity.

I really like open source, but you are doing nothing for its popularity by making bizarre claims.

As far as the article goes, it's an interesting datapoint, but no more. Am I supposed to prefer MS SQL over Postgres because no devs were mean to each other in its making??? It'd be nice if some projects practiced better etiquette, but that's about it. I wouldn't read it as open source devs are especially nasty, just that the internet as a communication medium has a hard time getting rid of trolls.

And it does speak to open source openness that this data was compile-able in the first place.

First-day-on-the-job dev: I accidentally nuked production database, was instantly fired

JLV
Facepalm

dev or admin?

If admin, then yes, still the CTOs fault for the docs and the lack of working backups. Most of you seem to be answering from the viewpoint that he was an admin, just questioning the context and procedures, but assuming he would have business on that db later on.

If dev... WTF is a dev supposed to be doing with live root passwords to the prod db? Most places don't, and shouldn't, give even system specialists devs (like me) access to the live db, figuring that any interaction should take place through admin-run scripts and/or the product SMEs. I find that sometimes that's a bit overkill and it's nice to have access to support troubleshooting. But I specifically ask for read-only access - no way to screw things up (well, except for mis-written 5M row Cartesian Joins). And none of this justifies root.

That's a system management fail, task segregation fail, people fail and a security fail by writing down those credentials in a disseminated document, all in 1.

Pai guy not too privacy shy, says your caller ID can't block IP, so anons go bye

JLV

Re: >If they are simply legalised pirates then I'm not going to cry too much when one of them dies

The cops carrying this out aren't necessarily too happy about it either. One big issue raised in Ferguson was that the police department had a history of aggressively giving out fines to black people for trivial offenses. It's a way to get money wo raising tases. But it's wrong if it's because the police chief is grabbing more money for his dept. And doubly wrong if it's because the city council is on the take themselves. But the cops doing this aren't doing it on their own initiative, are they?

Police should be there to protect and serve. Not extortionate. On this we both agree. The politicians and higher ups involved in fine-based revenue scams should be turfed out.

On your "I don't care if a cop dies" (including the schtums you cite), sorry, you are still a twat.

JLV
Thumb Down

>If they are simply legalised pirates then I'm not going to cry too much when one of them dies

You are familiar with the meaning of "Agent Provocateur"?

People like you, making extreme statements like yours, are very useful in deflecting valid criticism of the police force.

It's like the Black Lives Matter folk in Toronto wanting the police banned from their Pride Parade. What starts out as valid criticism of the police's dealings with the black community is disregarded because all the bigots can then quote that local chapter of BLM's extremist views to justify the status quo.

Most cops do a useful job, in often difficult circumstances. Could it be improved wrt minorities? Yes, at lest in some cases. Should some cops be let go? Yes, after checking individual facts carefully.

Should they get spit on principle? No. Who would prevent rapes, breakins, investigate murders...?

JLV
FAIL

>If I'm calling to report a crime, why wouldn't I want to talk to the police?

Let's say you are with a friend and he starts to OD on fentanyl. The obvious thing that should happen is that you should call emergency services. But if you are forced to reveal your identity, you may make entirely the wrong choice (not helped by you being impaired yourself) and dither or not call because you were involved.

Ditto with someone committing a crime themselves but wanting to report a more grievous crime. A mugger reporting a rape by his accomplice for example.

Real life example? http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/alleged-prostitute-charged-in-google-execs-yacht-overdose-death/ - skip the alleged though, she got convicted later.

This is not rocket science to you, is it?

p.s. I do support warrant-based access to caller records, when the severity justifies it, which a judge can easily determine.

Amazon granted patent to put parachutes inside shipping labels

JLV

Great idea

http://photo.charliechaplin.com/images/6364-gd-126-jpg

and... what happens if the package is marked as delivered but ended up in your nasty neighbor's yard?

Walmart workers invited to shuttle packages

JLV

Re: SlaveMart

>If it were WholeFoods or Trader Joes

Not really. WholeFoods' sanctimonious greenwashing greed turns me off twice as much as Walmarts.

You can be be anti-union (outside of dangerous jobs) and pro market but it is still pretty obscene to have so many full-time employees on US welfare/poverty line as Walmart does. Costco treats their employees much better (and get savaged by the stock market for it).

How do you do, fellow kids? Grandpa Puppet gets down with Docker

JLV

you saw that too?

Though, between Puppet having an obvious incentive to exaggerate and Gartner, being, well, Gartner, it's hard to guess who's closer to the mark.

China cyber-security law will keep citizens' data within the Great Firewall

JLV

Re: Just Cut Them Off

Hmmmm. I understand the sentiment, but it's not very practical, is it?

Gaze 20-30 years into the crystal ball and China will be where the US is currently at, in terms of global dominance. At some point, their military might will be hegemonic. We barely eked through getting through the Cold War with the Soviets without nuking each other. Do you really, really, want to engage in the kind of economic conflict you suggest without a very very good reason? And set the stage for Cold War 2?

Any high level political engagement with China needs to be bear in mind our overwhelming mutual interest in managing the transfer of superpower status with as little friction as possible.

China's not the nicest country to its citizens and, no, I don't think it always plays fair. But it's not (and hasn't been since Mao died) the kind of evil totalitarian regime that the Soviet Union was and which fully warranted containment. So be careful what kind of relationship you want to have with them.

'sides the cat's out of the bag. Cutting them off might have worked 20 years ago. Not now. But, yeah, still frustrating and worrying - theirs is not the nicest system and the lack of democratic legitimacy makes their leadership prone to flag waving and nationalism.

I'd say wait and see if it's just about protecting/owning their citizens or if it's about trade barriers in a growing economic sector. If the latter, retaliate or take them to WTO court.

JLV

Can't be, or else the artist hasn't done their homework. China and Russia hated each other by the time the TU-144 flew in 68. And after the Concordski's crash @ Le Bourget '73 it would have been the wrong plane to showcase.

JLV

Nice painting. Very 50s USSR. This on purpose?

Wonder how much is benign concern fot it's citzens welfare? Vs wanting to be the sole snooper?

Vs a convenient way to hobble competitors? Is this like in 90s when you could only sell cars there as joint ventures? And your joint venture partner could be fully expected to slurp your IP?

On the one hand this might stop all the data going to the US and/or being the subject of extra territorial US law enforcement fishing expeditions. Something that clearly needs doing.

On the other it could be protectionism. And if it's applied aggressively and naively and copied/retaliated on elsewhere it could balkanize Web apps for others. Imagine a data center per country you serve content in?

Interesting times.

FB? Eh, fuck you, Zuck :-)

Security company finds unsecured bucket of US military images on AWS

JLV

Re: A caution on encrypted data in ye "cloud"

+1 Same time-stamping issue applies to Truecrypt and backup software. There's a config switch to enable timestamps.

NORK spy agency blamed for Bangladesh cyberheist, Sony Pictures hack

JLV

Re: Who's going to protect us from the North Korean boogeyman

As I recall, NK has repeatedly gotten caught smuggling heroin & meth using its diplomats. So, claiming that this type of stuff is below them doesn't stand up. And... yes, NK is a bit of a bogeyman with their nukes, innit? Crazy enough to use them in a fit o pique too, unlike almost any other nuke-capable country.

I find hacking Bengladesh esp reprehensible, considering how poor that country is.

Here's hoping Fat Boy meets a timely end.