Posts by a_yank_lurker

Crass Act

Firing a large portion of your workforce in such a crass manner is bound to get out as someone would have 1) possibly recorded the whole incident, 2) leaked the details to various places hoping it goes viral; really nasty if there is a video to back it up. The only hope for him is it does not go viral but the numbers work against this; too many who could confirm the story. Also, once the people sniff out the story the Streisand Effect will take over.

As others have noted, His Crassness apparently had done similar crass actions in the past and basically got away with it. If it sinks the SPAC, I will not shed a tear for His Crassness.

Really?

Central bankers and politicians hate cryptocurrencies because they have no control over them. Unlike the control said criminals have over fiat currencies (all the major currencies in the world), cryptocurrencies are governed by a different set of rules which severely limits the amount of defrauding of the public they can do. The IMF only does the bidding of these criminals. If cryptocurrencies replace the local fiat currency, the local criminals have effectively lost control over their currency manipulation.

Baffle Gab

Typical baffle gab to say we are idiots and have no clue what we are doing.

Pointless

New theming for Notepad is pointless at best, idiotic at worst. My elderly eyes do not like any dark theme as some of the contrast is hard to see. Dark on white/light background is easier for my eyes. I wonder if there is an ADA (Americans with Disability Act) lawsuit in lurking, ready to pounce.

Right Tool for Task at Hand

To be blunt, Gunderson is an idiot. Different db engines and types are tools. An intelligent data manager is familiar with various tools and selects the best one for the application. If a relational db is best, there are several to choose from based on the scale and complexity of the data. Other types have there niches were they shine. To say one db is garbage like Gunderson is saying shows he does not understand there are many applications were MySQL and clones/derivatives are quite suitable but Postgres would be serious overkill. Now there are applications were MySQL is not suitable and thus something else should be used such as Postgres. Is MySQL used where it should not be? Certainly.

Difference?

In Feraldom prisoner phone conversations are routinely monitored and recorded while in jail/prison. The only difference is the calls are being transcribed by 'AI' which makes me question the accuracy of the transcription.

How About Customers

While internal harassment is bad, the Rejects of Redmond has a long history of harassing customers and other rather ethically challenged antics. I would expect internally there to be a lot of bad behavior based on how they treat their customers. What form the internal harassment takes is uncertain to this outsider but I would expect all forms to some extent.

Ethics or Lack Thereof

While multiple payments are offered by sellers and sometimes payment services (PayPal) to customers, it should never be offered by the Rejects of Redmond or any other browser vendor.

Apples to Grapefruit

The power consumption ratings of various languages is more than a bit dodgy. The dodginess is that they are only looking at specific use case for all languages. Every good language has a set of uses were it is one of the best options for use. It is balancing of execution time, code robustness, programming time, etc. that determines which is best. I would not use C#, Python, Typescript, Java, etc. were one would use Rust, C, C++, or Go and vice versa. The languages, all good, are designed to excel in different areas and conversely they all suck in different areas. Every language designed is a tradeoff features and intended use cases.

IoT

Idiocy of Twats is something I try very hard to avoid. To many of the devices are for convenience but I have not yet figured out convenient for whom; the marketing slimes or very doubtfully me. And I am not very thrilled to share much with vermin who should be used something useful like target practice.

Watchen das blinken Lichts

I remember seeing a couple minicomputers with 'das blinken Lichts'. Nice when the bulbs were not burnt out but....

Congrats

Congrats to heady up Rust.

On Go and Rust, I am familiar with both. Both are solid attempts to make certain types of programming easier and more reliable. One feature of Go I would like to see adopted more probably is its type system.

On C/C++, both were excellent languages when created but they have not aged particularly well (something true of many languages from their eras to be fair).

Another Use

Looking for hidden cameras was not what I was expecting for another phone use. But taking advantage that cameras have lenses which have certain optical properties is actually quite ingenious.

While hidden cameras are an issue, not to be minimized, I wonder how much of a problem they really are in terms of actual misuse vs media hype. Also, hidden cameras to some degree have been around for sometime now even if they were bulky film cameras and were real PITA to set up and use.

When traveling, I prefer to stay are a real hotel/motel or BnB, i.e. a real business, not someone's side gig to make a little extra money. One reason is I know a real business should be inspected by the local health authorities in most developed countries and there is better case law if there is a problem.

Not Unexpected

The Rejects of Redmond are not making any points with the hardware specifications for Bloatware 11. I have a Bloatware 7 partition around that get used a couple of times a year for the odd Bloatware program that needs to be run very occasionally (it is not allowed to connect to the Internet). The only reason for me to upgrade my hardware is for photo and video processing of large files, 4x and 8x files are not small. But here I might only upgrade on box as dedicated photo/video processing box (not using Bloatware for this). Otherwise, like most home users, I do not normally need that much hp to do my daily computer activities.

My Money and the Rejects of Redmond

Since the Rejects of Redmond insist on minimum hardware performance that none of my current boxes have for Bloatware 11 I think I will take the hint and not bother. All my boxes (except the Mac) run current versions of Linux (Mint or Manjaro) without any problems and I have no real need for Bloatware at home this reinforces the hint.

Also, Apple releases a once-a-year update of the OS without changing the GUI. Updating versions does cause me anguish trying to locate a command because benighted moron decide to be cute unlike versions of Bloatware.

I hate macros

Macros sound like a good idea but the security problems they can raise mean they are not worth having.

Money

I have no interest in taking a job with lower pay that a junior title implies. I would consider a lateral move for the same pay if I thought there was a much better upside for me even in my senile years (per the Ferals). I doubt anyone they would want to hire would consider a move to lower grade and pay.

Twatter

I have long viewed Twatter as the home of arrogant narcissists who have nothing better to do than to virtue signal to their nominal peers. As a group the Twatteratti despise center/center right opinions and thinking anyone holding such opinions are at best elbow draggers. There is no ability to actually discuss nuances on Twatter which worsens the problem; not that the Twatteratti would.

Fire the Moron

Chipzilla will do themselves a favor if they just fire the moron. Moore's Law is an observation that with time key computer hardware is/was getting faster as we got better at making denser integrated circuits. Since it was an observation, which has been revised a couple times, it will eventually fail as it was not based on any fundamental physics that will allow unending speed increases. It was observation about how we are getting better at designing, engineering, and manufacturing faster chips. How much longer will 'Moore's Law' still work, not sure, but we will eventually run into a brick wall. It does not matter if you find another semiconductor instead of silicon (germanium has used historically and I think some dabbling with gallium arsenide has been done) or not there is a brick wall according to our understanding of physics.

Another One Bites the Dust

How many harebrained ideas have the Rejects of Redmond touted and dropped quicker than a detonating nuke? I vaguely remember something called Silverlight but I know there many others.

2 Slimes Being Slimey

Given the already abysmal reputations of the 2 slimes I am not surprised they would sink to new lows with prompting.

Who's Who

What struck me about Theranos was who was not investing. It seems like vultures in the biotech industry largely avoided getting heavily entangled. Theranos seemed more like a sophisticated Ponzi scheme; the payoff was always in indefinite future. Sounds good to those unfamiliar with medical testing, analytical chemistry, and related fields. But like any Ponzi scheme it could not continue indefinitely as the number of suckers needed exceeded the supply.

Use?

FTP strikes me as a rarely used protocol. It has been a few years since I have used FTP. In fact I had forgotten about it being available in any browser.

General Jackassery

'nough said.

Fairly Reasonable

The announced policy overall seems fairly reasonable overall. But the devil is always in the details.

'well-established scientific consensus'

Science does not work by consensus but a couple of people having a better explanation for something than everyone else that can be thoroughly tested. It does not matter the area. Dogmatic assertions that something is true because it is the currently accepted scientific paradigm is closer to religion than science, not that scientists cannot fall into the trap of being dogmatic. Science relies on skepticism and debate to advance.

Shysterly Ignorance

This sounds like something a typical, ignorant shyster over here would write. A lot nonsense trying to sound impressive. Good security practices are to:

1. Limit user privileges to what they need and no more.

2. Properly set up routers, gateways, etc. including any software

3. Isolate equipment that does not need to be connected to other systems. Do not fall for the convenience trap of 'gee it would be nice for manglement to monitor remotely' when they will not. Sneaker net is still very useful in many situations.

4. Keep systems patched especially those that are Internet facing.

Why?

Why am I not surprised BaaD 11 has serious issues because the Rejects of Redmond are idiots.</snark>

Not So Sure

While batteries do not tolerate very fast recharging rates very well especially Li based systems its not clear if the fault is with Tesla, the charger or both. Chargers should be limiting the charge the put into a car anyway as Li batteries are notorious for not tolerating an overly fast charge. There are not enough details supplied about the chargers themselves to know. Though is not to say there isn't a fault on the Tesla monitoring and charging systems at the same time. If it is Tesla, it is also not clear whether the problem is fundamentally a battery problem or something else. Government Motors issued a warning the Chevy Dolts could catch fire due to a faulty battery.

Leisure Sue Larry

Leisure Sue Larry apparently believes specs only apply to what he says the customer should have not what the customer actually wants. From my experience, it is a common trick to disqualify a competitor by getting a condition you and a couple of competitors can meet but someone else cannot. Done right this is very difficult to challenge as one could point to a technical reason that is at least sort of reasonable for the condition.

Unfortunately

Unfortunately it appears Failbook, et. al. are back up.

Playing with Chemicals that Go Bang

There are many chemicals that can go boom if not respected. Besides the ones mentioned above perchlorates are notoriously unstable and have a bad habit of going boom in the presence of many organic compounds. A small amount goes a long way. One would assume who makes bombs would know how to properly handle unstable chemicals but there are numerous occasions of bombers blowing themselves up while making a bomb.

Two Criminals

It seems to me there are 2 groups of criminals; the ransomware goons and the managlement that does try to properly protect the company. The goons are obvious as they are actually perpetrating these attacks. But what seems to another common issue is the obliviousness of manglement to the risks of any attack (see Needless Markup). Issues like not having a proper, robust backup and business continuity plan and procedures, allowing code execution on work stations in Orifice in particular. Macros have no place in a secure office. Another is not looking alternative ways to make yourself less vulnerable; do you really need to use Bloatware as a Disservice and Orifice or could another OS and office suite be suitable. These issues worsen the effect of any attack. Manglement is never punished either civilly or criminally (aiding and abetting would be a start). Until someone starts imprisoning the manglement goons these attacks will continue because manglement has no real skin in the game.

</end rant>