* Posts by bombastic bob

10265 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015

Microsoft defends barging in on Chrome with pop-up ads pushing Bing, GPT-4

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: One more reason

A rumor (that I just now started) has it that Mozilla will be funded with secret Micros~1 money, like Gnome, and after a silent coup d'etat will be JUST AS HEINOUS as CHROME and Edge...

bombastic bob Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Microsoft's actions remind me of a past romance that really, really wants you to come back

"We value providing our customers with choice, so there is an option to dismiss the notification."

[who ELSE remembers GWX?]

US CHIPS Act set to electrify semiconductor scene with billions

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Remember Solyndra, the OBAKA admin's ginormous "Cluster-Feel" new/shiny solar tech funded by gummint?

I expect more of same, except with silicon chips this time.

[$$$M in gummint loans/grants/funds/etc. followed by squandering, looting, golden parachutes, and bankruptcy, just like before.]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: There's no such thing as silicon heaven..

Electric Sheep-land

Raspberry Pi OS 5.2 is here, with pleasant tweaks to Wayland-based desktop

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: No way-land

"I tried to install my usual Mate desktop and it completely ignored it, booting back in Pixel, even after configuring X.org. Hopeless."

It sounds like they did TOO much integration of that desktop. I am guessing that deliberately UNINSTALLING the userland and starting from scratch might fix it. Boot to console for a while until it is re-done.

Might be a little difficult to do that though.

Also for EMBEDDED use, Wayland is a SHOW STOPPER. You ABSOLUTELY need to work on programs REMOTELY from a desktop, and that means using DISPLAY and XOrg.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Alert

Re: No way-land

I think we're gonna need a "Devuan" style makeover on RPi OS

'Chemical cat' on the loose in Japanese city

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: History repeating itself

...And that was only the beginning of CatZilla's reign of terror....

Known as "Nyanjira" in Japan, sometimes "Nekojira" - the latest kaiju. Can't wait for the movie!

The end of classic Outlook for Windows is coming. Are you ready?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: I need classic outlook

"POP3 is horrible. It simply doesn't work in any situation where you need to access your mail from multiple devices (which i reckon is at least 90% of users these days)."

Then leave it ALONE - many of us prefer it. Like 3D Skeuomorphic vs 2D FLATSO. "The highway" is NOT an alternative the rest of us should be forced to accept.

Note: I take advantage of the "leave mail on the server for NN days" feature in TBird and other PROPER mail clients.

Trump, who tried kicking TikTok out of the US, says boo to latest ban effort

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Reference

(you were being facetious, right? right?)

Unfortunately foreign lobbyists [too] often get the ears (and votes) of the [crooked] politicians they pay for.

And BOTH major parties are guilty, It's why "America First" is SO appealing to at least half of the voters.

and $3Trillion in borrowing per year to buy all of that "help everyone but Americans" DEFICIT spending should make it obvious to EVERYONE (who;s head is not in the sand) that this has been going on for WAY too long.

(If I had MY way I'd "imminent domain" all CCP-owned EVERYTHING, from farmland to Bytedance, declare the CCP an enemy to the USA, detach our economy from the CCP, etc. and make up for it by being a HUGE net exporter of CHEAP oil which would ultimately help EU, UK, and also help drive Putin out of Ukraine THAT way - economically)

Anthropic unlocks Claude 3, claims it's better than ChatGPT and Gemini

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Is this yet another example of teaching computer AIs to FEEL instead of use LOGIC, to simulate "intelligence", when EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE is an OBVIOUS OXYMORON?

worse than 'military intelligence' - SO many bad decisions made in the name of "FEEL". And that would include AI designs, apparently, unless you WANT "Artificial Stupidity"

According to Elon, the solution to AI is a VERY STRICT adherence to THE TRUTH. Or something similar to that.

In other words "just the facts" without the Artificial Stupidity "morality" programmed in by leftists.

Chinese 'connected' cars are a national security threat, says Biden

bombastic bob Silver badge
Alert

Re: There is way too much 'Because they can' in todays vehicles,

Once in Central Cali-Fornicate-You, on I-5, in the summer, farmland all around, I hit a swarm of bugs in the middle of the night that COATED my windshield.

Wipers and fluid kept me seeing long enough to get past the swarm and keep going. But do forward cameras have wipers and washer fluid?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Are the United States

(RE: China becoming world's biggest economy)

All done with slave and child labor, grossly underpaid employees, totalitarian control, unfair international trade practices, and [specifically] theft of intellectual property [which I have seen clear examples of]

(under communism there is *NO* *REAL* *INNOVATION* - because the nail that STICKS UP gets THE HAMMER!)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: The lack of features as a feature

EV migration does not need to happen, nor will it. People will just fix up OLD cars - JUST! LIKE! CUBA!!!

(and I do not want to live in a place like CUBA, nor does anyone else, so there will never BE an "EV migration")

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: By 'no radio' you mean AM/FM

but specifically NOT an AM radio.

Most conservative talk radio is on AM after all, and is VERY anti-CCP and pro-Trump. Make up an excuse like "the power converter creates too much noise for the AM band to be usable" and now Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Clay&Buck, and others no longer threaten the CCP domination of the world, since nobody can listen to them while driving any more.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Came to say the same thing

that would be illegal and unusable

Has not stopped such things in the USA. FISA abuse, for starters.

A distributed database with 250 million sets of records is NOTHING. I can see how to build and use such a thing, tie it in with motor vehicle departments and law enforcement, and make it available for anyone that wants the data with the right "warrant" even though we know FISA has already been abused like this.

A daily report of GPS location and time, taken every 5 minutes, means 12 records per hour of driving, consisting of a 64-bit integer (seconds since the epoch), and 3 double precision floating point values (longitude, latitude, elevation). Total 32 bytes times 12 for each hour of driving, indexed to your VIN number, which is associated with YOU.

NOT hard at all. Not a lot of data, either. (I know)

And all law enforcement needs is a place to look or a person to investigate, and if this information NEVER shows up in court, it does not need to be "admissable evidence" as far as anyone is concerned.

Best hope those in power do not suddenly say "Find me the man and I'll find you the crime".

bombastic bob Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Came to say the same thing

see icon

bombastic bob Silver badge
Coat

Re: Came to say the same thing

Yes, but are they equipped with the EV equivalent of 'Atmos'??? (invented by Sontarans, of course)

When it suddenly steers you into a deep body of water and leaves the windows up and the doors locked... "You have reached your final destination"

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: Came to say the same thing

"I don't want China to be able to disable my car as part of a tit for tat if they invaded Taiwan and the US was helping Taiwan defend itself. But I wouldn't want a US or EU based automaker to have that power EITHER."

A VERY SANE summary.

Besides, the one thing about the actions of that doddering old fool (King Bidas, and his puppetmasters behind the curtain) is that it is currently an election year. And you always know he is lying whenever his lips are moving.

(This will all blow over after November)

Elon and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad legal week

bombastic bob Silver badge
WTF?

Uh,.. what?

(unions are not necessarily bad, and I do not believe Elon intentionally discriminates nor endangers his employees. But l[aw]Yers often go after deep pockets because poorly written laws ENABLE them to.)

people need to THINK instead of *FEEL*. *FEEL* has been making bad decisions since human history began, and like beer goggles, often results in a hangover and a possible "coyote ugly" situation.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Thumb Down

DEI *IS* discrimination. I rail against it ALL OF THE TIME.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: What is it with these hard-right muppets?

"Hard right"

I do not think those words mean what YOU think they mean...

If 'hard right' (Adolph, Mussolini) is not a mirror clone of 'hard left' (Mao, Stalin) then I think your definition might be "inaccurate" at best... [in fact both circle around and meet at the bottom, In My Bombastic Opinion]

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: Odd, isn't it?

Elon's cars will never be "affordable" for most people. This is not his market. Earlier Cadillacs had air conditioning and cruise control when few others did, and now it's standard equipment. But back then, only those with a lot of disposable income could afford cars with them.

In the "Marketing Cycle" world these customers are the "early adopters". The masses will not have this for a decade or more.

Early in Ford's history, Benz sued him over their invention of "The Automobile". Benz lost Ford's patent challenge, i.e. "too broad" or similar. European car makers only wanted cars for the WEALTHY and not for the masses, after all, and Ford wanted his own employees to own some of the cars they made [mostly for PR I bet but he understood the MASS market].

Anyway new/shiny is generally bought by early adopters. In a decade or so the features that CAN be in mass market cars will end up there, and patent royalties will enrich the inventors.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Alien

Re: Odd, isn't it?

"But there's a reason those things never got beyond kids comics..."

meanwhile re-usable SpaceX rockets REGULARLY land on their tail on a barge that moves with the ocean,.. like a 1950's kid's sci fi comic.

Lightweight Windows-like desktop LXQt makes leap to Qt 6 with version 2.0

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

The snag is that by the time they'd done it, Gtk 3 was on its last legs and GNOME had moved on to Gtk 4.

Sadly true. Some of GTK3 is an improvement over GTK2 (or at least has the appearance of being an improvement) but it DOES mean that appearance settings are schizophrenic.

The WORST design choice for GTK4 essentially *CODIFIES* AdWaita as the ONLY theme, basically, regardless of how it is being portrayed. But in Mate it is possible to reverse this, even with Firefox, by un-doing the AdWaita override so you can get NORMAL LOOKING SCROLLBARS back (and similar things) with TraditionalOK as your theme.

In FreeBSD there was no Gnome 3 port for a long time. The Gnome 2 code got REALLY stable. I liked it. Then Mate came along and solved the rest of the problems.

I wish there had been a similar fork for Qt-related things like KDE and now LXQt where you are NOT locked into a 2D FLATSO TIFKAM clone theme.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Can someone man'splain this to me?

in reality it is children who grew old enough to say "It is OUR turn now", but have convinced themselves that the choices made in the past were NOT based on experience, but on a LACK of what THEY (the younguns) have, something that us "old farts" cannot POSSIBLY understand.

And once again I mention Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority"

https://metallicman.com/laoban4site/superiority-by-arthur-c-clarke-full-text/

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: Can someone man'splain this to me?

can we just fix the bugs and stop mucking around with the UI? This change for the sake of change, is why I'm moving to Linux instead of Windows. The last thing I want is for that disease to infect Linux.

Welcome aboard!!!

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

Mate for a traditional interface

The one thing Mate has going that nonefew of the OTHERS seem to "get right" is a 3D skeuomorphic look with TraditionalOK and related themes.

AdWaita and ALL of the 2D FLATSO FLATASS themes (including GTK 4 and above) should be taken out back and KILLED until they DIE to DEATH, possibly out of a 4th floor window onto the boss's car.

I took a look at some of the LXQt screenshots https://lxqt-project.org/screenshots/ and I saw Win-10-nic TIFKAM title bar and buttons and OTHER window decorations. YUCK!!!

What is WRONG with people these days, taking away CHOICE from users by ONLY OFFERING 2D FLATASS themes??? And, GOING WITH THE BORG's DESIGN AS THE *ONLY* CHOICE!!!

New solvent might end winter charging blues for EV owners

bombastic bob Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Fluoroacetonitrile

* do not allow your vehicle to be exposed to a flood nor drive it into a lake

* do not get into a traffic accident,

* do not let your vehicle be consumed by a house fire

* do not shoot your vehicle with any kind of projectile

* do not accidentally short wires together due to rats chewing on the cables

etc.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Flame

I think you pretty well nailed it

yes, a "halt and catch fire" situation seems even MORE likely how...

Some years ago I did a lot with LiPo batteries, charging circuits, determining how much battery is left, yotta yotta and one time I accidentally plugged a battery into a test circuit that was inadvertently shorted directly across the battery, In under 2 seconds it swelled like a sausage shaped balloon (from being flat and rectangular) and made a weird hissing noise when it did it. I yanked it out of circuit and got it to a sink in a few seconds and ran water on it, then it immediately collapsed into a wrinkled version of its former flat rectangular self. And this battery was under 300mAH if I recall correctly,.

So yeah, put multi-KAH batteries into an electric vehicle with this electrolyte, along with Lithium electrodes, and see what happens in a traffic accident,..,

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Doesn't

good resource. needs javascript enabled though

bombastic bob Silver badge
Alert

Re: A new solvent.

flouro-something means it has flourine in it. This by itself is not so much of a problem, unless it re-combines with OTHER things. HF acid is extremely toxic and dangerous, for example, though a flouride buffer solution used by your dentist really isn't [when use properly], nor is the flouride in toothpaste. CFCs used in air conditioning are non-toxic unless you BURN them, and then you can get phosgene gas (from the chlorine) and possibly similar kinds of chemicals from the flourine (I am not sure on this however, just making a point about what burning does in general). And as we all know lithium-based batteries have been known to "halt and catch fire" now and then.

That being said, my SPECIFIC concern here has to do with a technology MONOPOLY by CCP regarding electric vehicles, and the FLAT OUT UNSCIENTIFIC LIES that are being used to (literally) FORCE people to switch over to them from gasoline and diesel engines. We know that CCP scientists have done their best at industrial and academic espionage on our technology for a LONG time, and they have finally reached a point with EV batter tech where WE must honor THEIR patents (when THEIR lack of patent respect towards US has been BLATANT).

THAT is my main concern. We do NOT need to enrich the CCP. any further.

It's crazy but it's true: Apple rejected Bing for wrong answers about Annie Lennox

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: "willing to sell Bing, which you wouldn't do if it was a strategic asset."

And now is attempting to put the CoPilot lipstick on the pig…

but will they manage to get it on the end that goes "Oink" ?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

"U-Bend links"

heh - good one

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: If Google loses, it does not win

I just want a search engine that does NOT include SIlly Valley BIAS in the results, whether in the order they are presented, or any additional filtering applied

The fear is that GEMINI will become "the norm:, and NO amount of DuckDuckGo search tracking mitigation will help you.

Elon has floated the idea of his OWN search engine, with an unbiased "free speech" focus. We shall see.

Thinking of Gemini, it is as if Google tried to teach the AI how to *FEEL* instead of using LOGIC. The result is a search engine that *FEELS* its results are correct, but when you remove the beer goggles, you find out just how COYOTE UGLY those results really are. "Artificial Stupidity" is the predictable result.

BOFH: In the event of a conference, the ninja clause always applies

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

Re: You have to know the obscure rules ....

I particularly liked this one: we'll need a door-to-door shuttle service which must include the driver aiding us to insert our house keys into our respective door locks.

X protests forced suspension of accounts on orders of India's government

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

going public helps fix things

X effectively went public with it. Now, eyes are fixed on India's gummint and THEIR bad behavior.

Trident missile test a damp squib after rocket goes 'plop,' fails to ignite

bombastic bob Silver badge
Boffin

Re: What the hell?

Titanium is also a lousy material to make subs out of if you want them to be SILENT. I think Titanium tends to resonate like a bell. There certainly are bicycle bells made of titanium

Iron makes for a lousy bell (compared to bronze 'bell metal' at least). I'd think it would be better for a submarine hull to "not resonate".

Someone had to say it: Scientists propose AI apocalypse kill switches

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pirate

Re: No kill switches in AIs in island volcanoes

Back doors and skeleton keys and master keys controlled by gummints NEVER WORK. Either the keys are stolen and/or misused, or ONLY EVIL PEOPLE have/use the REALLY GOOD tech.

Haven't *THEY* learned that lesson yet with STRONG ENCRYPTION???

GUMMINTS: Just STOP IT. Get OUT of the way, and KNOW YOUR PLACE. You work FOR US. You are NOT our OVERLORDS. We are NOT PEASANTS.

LockBit ransomware gang disrupted by global operation

bombastic bob Silver badge
Pint

Suck shit [to all of the criminals], and WELL DONE to Law ENFORCEMENT!

Yes, it WILL certainly be good times for all REGULAR citizens (and not the [alleged] leeches and bottom feeders that commit criminal acts) once the perpetrators are arrested, confined, tried, convicted, incarcerated, and forced to pay DAMAGES and RESTITUTION to their victims.

I hope it is *SO* overwhelming that NOBODY ELSE will DARE to try this again in the future. I want the process these alleged scumbags go through, the lawyers, the subpoenas, the depositions, the confinement, EXPENSIVE bail (if any), the manhunts, the trial itself, the selling off and confiscation of assets, and everything ELSE that goes with it, to be INTIMIDATING AS HELL towards any OTHER who might consider committing such illegal acts in the future.

Well done law enforcement!!!

Space nukes: The unbelievably bad idea that's exactly that ... unbelievable

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: That was my thought, too.

"And not all decisions are taken by evil global masterminds, moving the pieces on their giant chess boards."

that's JUST what THEY *WANT* you to think... A CONSPIRACY THEORIST WOULD SAY!!!

Seriously though, if you think about it, with the OBVIOUS media, UN, and WEF pressure against national sovereignty (like 'America First') in favor of 'new world order' (under a form of socialism, of course), you have to wonder WHY the drive towards this alleged worldwide 'socialist utopia' is being accelerated... and NOT to OUR benefit...?

bombastic bob Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Re: That was my thought, too.

I think it's revealing since Russia is no longer "red", and effectively no longer a REAL threat (to NATO or the USA), but the GINORMOUS (communist) element in the room (CCP) is generally ignored by the media and the current U.S. administration...

Putin is basically less of a threat than he is portrayed as, and lots of blame gets thrown his way, whether deserved or not. The Ukraine war is resolvable and I doubt EU wants to pay for it. But too many Con-Grab critters DO want a decades' long QUAGMIRE to fund and electioneer and pay back their donors with.

I was alive during Vietnam, and I remember most of it. Neighbor kid across the street joined the army at 18 and died over there. I was 6 at the time. Forever wars need a blamable enemy, and so you conveniently have Putin who deserves a lot of it (but NOT all). So I'm not anti-war, just anti-QUAGMIRE. And "Nukes in space" threats conveniently in an election year most CERTAINLY become "tthreats" to perpetuate the current policies and gummint power grabbers.

Dems are at it again, trying to break open black-box algorithms

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Simple fix

American legislators, with few exceptions, are in it for the money and the power and care VERY little about things that do not affect either of those (when it comes to us PEASANTS).

I was also considering that a simple NDA, whether explicit or implied, is all they should need to protect intellectual property. Just legislate THAT and all should go well.

(But it takes a gummint to inflate something simple into a money-laundering scheme for your donors)

Microsoft might have just pulled support for very old PCs in Windows 11 24H2

bombastic bob Silver badge
Meh

Re: Linux's moment

you are not wrong about the VM. However Micros~1 is also making it HARDER to run windows in a VM as well.

I abandoned my Visual Studio subscription because of Win 11. If I must run that OS in the future I'll buy the cheapest hunk o' crap CPU I can find and wire it to the KVM as needed.

Seems to me that the $800/yr became impractical and unaffordable. $200 for a cheap hunk o' crap makes more sense.

Pentagon launches nuke-spotting satellites amid Russian space bomb rumors

bombastic bob Silver badge
Happy

Re: CHECK YOUR SYNTAX/SPELL/WHATEVER CHECKER

site = location

so, no.

"line-of-sight" even here in the USA

bombastic bob Silver badge
Trollface

Re: So, this is new?

Why is this just now important (rhetorical) ?

Election year, and Demo[n,c][R,r]ats are running out of things to manipulate voters with.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Stop

Re: Optics

I've worked with a few Russian citizens back in the day, and I do not think it is this way.

Putin is a BAD ACTOR on the world stage, and YES he views appeasement as weakness, but it is STILL possible to make agreements with him that benefit both Russia and the west. You need strong and honest leadership for this, NOT 'WEF puppets' doing their masters' bidding.

The Tucker Carlson interview with Putin is an interesting view, though over 2 hrs in length.

bombastic bob Silver badge
Megaphone

your perception of US politics is bass-ackwards

In truth, it is the LEFT who want to control everything, along with the right-wing "Uni-party" members of the GOP, aka "RINOS".

MAGA is exact opposite, seeks LESS government control, MORE freedom [particularly to individual states[, LOWER taxes, LESS regulation, UNBIASED law enforcement, TRUE justice reform (not woke-ism, race-based "equity" nonsense, etc.] and seeks to DO AWAY with those things that MOST people understand are COMPLETELY unfair [like DEI, tic-the-box quotas, 2 tier justice system, abuse of political power including the DOJ and IRS, and monolithic one-size-fits-all top-down control from DC]. MAGA means you aren't punished or canceled for having wrong thoughts or wrong speech. It means you can be tolerant without having to EMBRACE every possible bizarre lifestyle, because everyone ELSE wants freedom, too, INCLUDING the freedom to DISAGREE or DISLIKE something. MAGA is like conservative libertarianism, which is NOT activism, but the recognition that everyone wants to do their own thing and should be able to, as long as it's not disturbing, hurting, or seriously bothering anybody else.

I do not know how or where the opposite perception came from, but it is about as wrong as calling communism "freedom".

NOTE: MY definition of MAGA and Tea Party are what I just described. If that turns out to be NOT what Trump and other MAGA Republicans actually stand for, I'd abandon them faster than an illegal alien anchor baby at an orphanage on the OTHER side or the U.S. border. But I believe my perception is the correct one.

As for "Nukes in Space" the article made my point: "it would put Russia at odds with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which states that signatories 'shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit.'"

Conveniently the trial balloon scaring people about Russia (again) is being floated in an election year.

Cutting kids off from the dark web – the solution can only ever be social

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: The law is not everything

Who needs ridiculously invasive laws when PARENTS are the ones ultimately responsible for what their kids are doing.

Parents, it seems, need to take control of kids' phones and internet access. Start with the following:

"If you want to use TIk Tok, you need to buy your own phone and service plan. Until then, this is MY phone and I am allowing you to USE it, at MY discretion,"

Forgetting the history of Unix is coding us into a corner

bombastic bob Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: One thing that has/should change is...

"the user experience"

That phrase and "UX" vs "UI" always makes me *cringe*

It also reminds me of a joke: How many people in Silicon Valley does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to physically change the bulb, and 2 to "share in the experience".

(that is assuming that anyone in Silly Valley even KNOWS what a light bulb IS...)

bombastic bob Silver badge
Devil

Re: Not *everything* is a file

just a minor correction...

with respect to network layer, the basic I/O works exactly as it does for a serial device, from the standpoint of reading, writing, FCNTL, ioctl, polling, etc..

A program that accesses a serial port can just as easily work with a socket rather than a file identifier so long as you do not expect to change the baud rate, etc..

Other than that the socket API functions (like send, recv) are supersets of read/write (etc.), and you have connections for TCP. Yet the basic I/O looks the same from inside as well as outside.

So "everything is a file" still applies to sockets and networking.

In X11 the basic communication is client/server through sockets. I am not sure how Wayland does it, but there is NO "DISPLAY" environment variable to indicate which socket to communicate on, such as X11 would use for multiple displays and remote execution.