Posts by bombastic bob

Re: History repeats itself

/me imagines that every drawing involves a posing man that is dressed like Marcel Marceu

Re: History repeats itself

Japan switched to using phonetic alphabets long ago, yet kept a subset of the Chinese characters (kanji) because they have a LOT of homonyms in the language and chinese characters probably disambiguate things well enough to keep using them (either that or tradition). But it DOES take a good part of Japanese and Chinese schooling JUST to learn to read and write. And everyone I've ever seen reading any significant amount Chinese writing (like a book) has to carry a dictionary and refer to it often.

This is why nearly EVERY language uses a phonetic alphabet. It just makes more sense. Humans generally communicate vocally. And our writing reflects that.

(and emoticons are NOT CUTE - they are MOSTLY NAUSEATING unless explicitly used for humor)

Icon, because there's not actually a VOMIT icon.

Re: Idiocracy

Without having REAL daily enemies to slay, just to stay alive, it seems that an IDIOCRACY filled with compliant sheeple of lower average intelligence (and tyrannical "leaders" of even LOWER intelligence) may be INEVITABLE... (no need to be smart and/or clever just to survive)

If I must use an emoticon, see icon (that, or the middle finger)

Re: Accessibility Fail.

Emoticons in Braille?

(how can I do a MIDDLE FINGER in Braille?)

Re: But ...

* facepalm *

Re: But ...

i should create a special e-mail address just for them...

"Up.Yours.Porker at example.com" (whatever my domain is subbed in for 'example.com') although the DMV already _does_ have my regular e-mail address from when I renewed driver's license and car registration online...

claim "4th ammendment" and "5th ammendment" to the rest of 'em.

(YMMV in the UK or elsewhere in the world)

Re: Amazon is just showing off ...

"Mr. Kettle? Mr Pot on line 4."

Re: I can see their reasons

I read it as "fear of lawsuits".

Either that, or "It's MY sandbox and MY bucket, you have to PLAY the way *I* TELL YOU to"

(VERY bad policy for "Open Anything")

Re: Opportunity

accountants probably edit (or at least copy to) files on a share. Then, malware ANYWHERE on the network that has write access to that share can pooch it.

A Linux server could make and store backups of the share using a cron job and store them where windows machines cannot (easily, or even remotely easily) access it. THEN, you restore the latest backup after you clean the malware off of the various computers, and go from there.

And proper directory-level and file-level security would help to keep EVERY windows computer from having write access to those shares.

Re: Opportunity

it is naive to believe Linux makes you safe.

When you apply the correct security-related thinking to setting up a Linux server, it's pretty frickin' solid as far as security goes.

SO yes, and no. YES it is naive, so you need to hire a Linux admin (or consultant) who knows what he's doing, and then you should be as prepared as you can be for any kind of malware storm

Uber-security might involve putting the server and data into a VM, and then have the host machine buttoned up tighter than a bullfrog's behind (and host the recent backups, with offsite storage for the older ones).

There are a LOT of things you can do with Linux (security-wise) that aren't so easy in the windows world, and they are VERY effective. But yeah, it cannot be set up by an IDIOT or you'll be pretty bad off when the storm hits.

Re: Opportunity

By adopting Linux across the company.

At least some of us agree with you in principle, and enough evidence exists that the changeover WOULD save you money. Convincing every employee in a large company to switch to Linux desktops might be difficult.

HOWEVER, on the server end you'll have better luck. You could, for example, do automatic daily (compressed tarball) backups of a data share, with weeks' of history and frequent-enough offsite mirroring (so you can go back > a year if you have to) and at least protect important data assets THAT way. And unless the Linux machines were set up by an IDIOT, the likelihood that a windows malware application COULD affect the servers (aside from pooching data on shares) is SMALL.

(important note, non-SMB-shared directories will effectively be shielded against malware attacks from windows systems, assuming an IDIOT did not set up the servers)

Unfortunately someone may some day figure out how to crack Linux security, and the "inside job" is ALSO not protected against, at least not completely.

But with a good BOFH and properly configured LINUX or BSD servers, you'd have a MUCH better chance of weathering a malware storm. In My Bombastic Opinion of course.

Re: Burn it to the ground

proof please. "sauce" please.

If UEFI has spyware in it, prove it please. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying that you need to prove things of this nature if you are going to make a claim like this, Because if the allegations ARE true, it has wide sweeping implications.

not saying CCP does not WANT this. But other stories about China manufacturing and malware-on-board have been made before WITHOUT any conclusive substantiating evidence, right Bloomberg? Still waiting for the proof... (and their credibility has been damaged)

you could still buy their hardware, WIPE THE HARD DRIVE, turn OFF "secure boot", and put Linux on it.

But if this option is EVAR lost, I think their sales will have a significant dent...

what makes git tricky to understand is its choice of nomenclature

true. I had to re-train my thinking a bit to familiarize myself with that the @#$% they actually MEANT by "that" (whatever 'that' is for the current context). It did not take long before I "got it".

I've used P4, cvs, svn, and git. I prefer svn for my own things, but git's ok for public and work-related projects. I've also (*cough*) experienced "Source Safe" back in the day and I *ahem* "perceive myself to have been involuntarily violated and become dirty" because of it...

the git command-line interface is... not exactly easy to learn.

I dispute the accuracy of your opinion. example follows...

From the article: you should never ever use the github interfaces to merge anything

When I read that part, I knew EXACTLY why Linus would say this. For a raw pull request (i.e. submitting your dev branch's differences from the official repo) the github inteface works very well. For actual editing and stuff, no.

Therefore you should just do all of your merges and any additional edits using a decent local merge tool (maybe 'meld'?) between your local working copy and the dev branch on github, after you do a 'git pull' on your local copy of the dev branch so you know that what you're comparing to for your merge is at least CLOSE to what you'll be doing the pull request for (assuming that no major edits in the official branch affect the pull request).

Then use 'git commit' followed by 'git push' to your dev branch, and then do the pull request.

You really only need to memorize and master a few git commands:

git status

git pull

git push

git commit

git add

git rm

the rest of the commands can be looked up in the docs "whenever", as needed.

NOT that hard. seriously NOT. But yeah you need a token. And I solved that.

If you search for it on github, I wrote a simple program that lets you use a pass phrase to decrypt an encrypted file and put its contents in the clipboard (for X11 systems though). In short, you would encrypt the github issued 'password' token in a file, and then run the utility from a command shell (say 'bash') and enter your pass phrase, and the github token will be on the clipboard. Then, when you do 'git push' and git prompts for user/pass, you type in the user and paste the token when it prompts for password. This is due to github's recent policy change regarding pass phrases and git command line, and the method I use can be put on computers you do not own (like customer machines) as needed to access github repos without revealing your token.

Re: Precedent set?

"Commander Data is a Toaster"

Re: Judge is right

Wouldn't the computer operator and/or data entry person for the AI's algorithm be an "inventor" by using a tool to create it? I see no reason why those people can't put their names instead of the AI program name...

keep going, you're overflowing with common sense

Re: Water-agile-fail

when the underlings understand their boss's job better than the boss himself.

"How to manage a boss" is a necessary skill for any decent IT contractor.

Re: So true...

"delegation" is the best management style. Its only weakness is when you lack competent people to delegate to. The manager who works the least is probably doing the best job.

Re: Don't you just love it ?

Nope, it's a Democrat inquiry called by Pelosi to distract from her own failings

I'm not saying you're ENTIRELY wrong because we know that politicians do things _LIKE_ this a _LOT_ because they're politicians. However, I think the inquiry might actually be a GOOD thing, once the truth comes out.

A bunch of people allegedly trespassed and broke public property. They were "less than peaceful" which is NOT what Trump wanted to happen when he held his rally. It scared a bunch of politicians for a number of reasons, and they're busy hyping it all up for their own personal gain. This is what politicians _DO_ way too often. And, of course, their echo chamber media pals are enabling them because, if it bleeds, it leads.

So the REAL problem is the politicians. The people who trespassed and broke property need to be prosecuted accordingly. The only way to GET RID of evil politicians is to REPLACE them with DIFFERENT (hopefully not evil) politicians.

which COULD maybe be one of US, you know...

Re: reading the article / mixing up reality with expectations

They have asked some companies to preserve records

Right. this is not the same as demanding the records and THEN "going fishing" to "find something". Subpoenas and warrants must be relevant AND specific to avoid violating things like the U.S. Constitution's 4th amendment.

(I do not like the way this is being treated BUT they [congress] haven't violated the law; however SOME people on Jan 6 WERE allegedly trespassing and damaging public property, so they SHOULD be brought to justice, within the confines of the law and constitutional rights)

Re: Lawmakers or lawbreakers?

U.S. Congress subpoena power is still "due process" and of course if there is overreach (like violating the 4th amendment to the U.S. Constitution) then a federal judge can intervene for any objections to discovery that is deemed a violation or simply "too broad". So it's still "due process" and not tyranny so long as you have the ability to object and the congressional investigation is overseen by the courts.

It becomes tyranny when due process no longer exists.

(IANAL so my legal advice/opinion is worth what you paid for it)

Yet, I think there is STILL value to leaving your phone off (with no battery) at times...

The questions that no one has asked those leaders are "who are they protecting?" and "why are they fighting this?"

I would like to see SIMILAR QUESTIONS asked about what happened in Milwaukee, Portland, Seattle, and other places from organizations like B.L.M. and ANTIFA. And I think the death toll from all of THAT was a *LOT* higher.

The laws were broken, and justice MUST be applied EQUALLY to ALL.

(and what happened on January 6 was a clear violation of the law, too)

Re: Who did knew that

Actually, "they" should know better than to anger programmers, many of whom are white-hat hackers, with a few grey hats as well. Github was (more or less) originally a place where people were FREE to put open source projects. Commercial-use support came afterwards, and I use it so it's a good thing.

HOWEVER, "angering the customer base" is a BAD thing. If I am right, and the people who originally *MADE* Github so popular are "Freedom Loving" hacker-types that *CRINGE* at even the *IDEA* of nanny-bots built into the service (and getting in the way of their FREEDOM), I think the results will be predictable.

Re: Any interest, though

agreed

Re: Too few words

I'm waiting for words like "if" and "for" to be included in their list

Re: Passive aggressive is okay, right? ... right? ... right?

from the article: The software also won't make suggestions if the user's code contains any of the stored slurs.

So that could be a back-door way of implementing an OFF switch, right? I'm assuming that would be in a context of a "you must use this" directive from a clueless boss.

I don't like "features" of this nature anyway. I type fast and don't need something correcting me while I type, nor GENERATING BAD CODE *FOR* me. I haven't used Copilot yet and so it may not be as IRRITATING as other "autocomplete" or so-called "intelligent" features of an IDE. Still, from the descriptions (and apparent history of generating INSECURE code according to the article) it's probably NOT something I'd use without coercion.

I'll just have to make sure to include a harmless (yet 'banned' word) in the header comments of each file. heh.

/* The liberal use of code comments by maintainers is encouraged */

Re: Usage

your example is CLEARLY a reason why "profanity nanny" global "one size fits all" filters need to have LOCAL SETTINGS MANAGEMENT (including an "off" switch).

And maybe certain programmers should REALLY just become more tolerant and/or get a sense of humor. There are CERTAINLY more important things in the world of software development than ROBOT WORD POLICE. One of them was pointed out in the article, something about Copilot generating INSECURE CODE...

Re: "If it asks whether you want to play a game, may I recommend you select 'no'"

and don't forget to water the flowers