Posts by bombastic bob

Re: "Now they are your best friends? sigh..."

"Has anyone informed the President of this?"

I send him e-mails 3 or 4 times per week since just before that first 15 day period ended, saying "LET US WORK" and things of THAT nature (usually with bullet points as to why). At some point I may start printing letters and putting stamps on them, if that helps get the message across.

Governor "Nuisance" of Cali-fornicate-you also gets FAXes sent from me, usually in LARGE LETTERS (100 point Hulkbuster font of course) saying LET US WORK! END THE SHUTDOWN NOW!

If enough people do this sort of thing, politicians actually worry... in many cases they CAN be recalled (especially in Cali-fornicate-you!).

Trump never really ordered full economic shutdowns. Governors did that. Trump may have to ORDER THEM TO STOP IT though... (it's taking WAY TOO LONG - bad models, too many excuses, and "those who love power": are the biggest problems).

Re: petty power

Do these nosy "turn 'em in" neighbors and overly-aggressive cops wear BROWN SHIRTS by any chance?

Re: what is problem with COBOL ?

migrating COBOL data storage systems to SQL, at the very least, might be worth while [but requires that time/money thing to do it]

Trying to gerrymander "Object Oriented" into that mix is likely to result in HORRIBLY INFLATED contracts and plenty of job security later on... as in "It is SO Object Oriented that only the author understands it".

Object Oriented = Highly Overrated [and I wonder if those who are responsible for 'those kinds of abominations' could properly DEFINE what 'an object' is, in a single sentence... [it's a nice job interview question that will weed out the "job security" types from your development team]

Re: I wish they'd stop messing with things that don't need "fixing"!

MEGA THUMBS UP!

"the DAB signal is patchy, even along major roads. "

That's kinda what I was wondering about. I'm guessing that a digital signal will require Ghz frequencies instead of 100Mhz-ish frequencies (like cell phones, basically) and as such, are more line-of-sight than they are able to penetrate between things and around corners, into canyons, through tunnels, and so on.

My question would've been "how well does it work when you drive through a tunnel". OK even AM can drop out in a long tunnel, but your average bridge or short tunnel won't affect it. FM is a bit more sensitive but generally I don't have problems receiving FM up to 20 or 30 miles from a station. In the USA the FM broadcast is ~88Mhz to ~108Mhz (I'm guessing it's different in the UK).

We will no doubt continue having regular broadcast AM and FM here in the USA but the TV stations have all gone to digital. Antenna reception still works for the digital signals, but is occasionally 'iffy' and pretty much everybody uses satellite or cable anyway.. (and I don't plan on watching TV while I drive)

AM has the advantage of world-wide propagation, almost as good as short wave. Stations have to turn the power down at sunset.

Re: While here in the states

gun stores ARE essential services. Protecting yourself is ESSENTIAL... especially if sneak-thieves try and steal your toilet paper!!!

" they just sit there rewriting stuff that was previously working" etc.

It's the "New, Shiny" (read: less attractive/useful to MOST of us) wheel!!!

I once did a parody one-panel comic showing a cave man working on a stone wheel (but not quite finished with it), and a geeky Bill G. type with the older windows logo on his polo shirt, with "Microsoft Wheel", which was octagonal instead of round.

explanation: got it out to market FIRST, even though it was an INFERIOR DESIGN

anyway, for your well-deserved snark, thumbs up!

Re: People don't learn...

we are expected to abide by any patent a manufacturer in China has on any equipment that is made there, if we make it "on shore". But of course, THEY can do what they want if they don't get caught...

I hear 'made in Mexico' is a cool thing these days, too! [OK I'm 30 minutes away from Mexico so I'm a little biased, but happy to promote manufacturing there for any labor-intensive process that makes sense to build in Mexico]. Competitive prices, too.

There are hidden costs to building things in China rather than your own country. Those hidden costs have become a *bit* more obvious, haven't they?

(don't get me wrong, I like China, but I don't like their government, nor the way that government treats their own people, and the way that government treats THE REST OF THE WORLD)

Re: "and assume root privilege"

"and user rooted devices will block unknown apps by default"

you sure it's not the opposite (or were you being snarky)?

A normal "non-rooted" device blocks un-blessed applications by default, requiring you to jump through a hoop or two to install the potentially "dirty" ones. Some older 'droid versions were actually LESS convenient for doing this, at least on the versions I've worked with [I've had to do it for development stuff a while back, put APK up someplace, have people install it, etc.]. Newer ones have different hoops when you download, but just an extra "yes I want to do this" step rather than changing the default setting to allow 'foreign' APKs or whatever. It's been a while since I did it last... [online instructions if I forget]

But yeah any downloaded APK is a potential disaster for the person installing. The idea that a factory reset does NOT get rid of this particular malware is disturbing. Not sure how to EASILY do a complete re-flash though. It sounds like it would require more than an average tech... [maybe time to research doing that - I never went so far as to figure out how to do a complete re-flash on a 'droid device]

maybe future 'droid devices will need to ship with actual ROM (and not a potentially writable image) for a PROPER factory reset.

/me considers investigating how a debug USB cable might make this a little easier to deal with...

(I obviously STILL have a lot to learn about these things)

and yet - the absolute LAST thing we should want to see is an Apple-like (paywall and/or censor-wall) *STRANGLEHOLD* on what you can or cannot install... _ESPECIALLY_ for independent developers!

Re: When will they learn?

what about extensions that tighten privacy AGAINST DATA THAT GOOGLE COLLECTS?

Just thought I'd ask...

my guess is that it would be hard to use that kind of algorithm with a microcontroller, so NOW "someone out there" will need to produce a charge controller that can be queried [let's say using I2C or SPI] for the charge cycle calculation. That should also work for phones, laptops, and even cars [if it's designed for multi-battery systems].

At least, that's what I'd LIKE to see happen - intelligent LiPo/LiIon charge controllers that can also measure battery capacity.

I worked on something a while back that would estimate battery life using the known charge characteristics, the known discharge current, and the number of 'ticks' it would take to cross specific voltage thresholds during the charge and discharge. It duplicated (more or less) my understanding of the 'smart battery' tech that goes into phones and laptops. Still it was easiest to rely mostly on the charge controller IC to make sure the battery was properly charged and then just intelligently measure things to estimate capacity. [and I don't really want to see the universe encumbered with SOFTWARE PATENTS over this...]

So in my view, THAT is the best place to put this kind of AI batterty tech - in the charge controller, with a way of reading it (like I2C or SPI).

Re: Solving the wrong problem...

they need Simon the BOFH to help 'em out

Re: Solving the wrong problem...

"management do not understand."

Yeah they need to wait "over by the window" while the schmott-people are working...

Re: "cobalt [sic] computer skills"

as far as 'cobalt' is concerned - it was probably auto-corrected by a spell checker. They're lucky it wasn't turned into something more snark-worthy!

And you know those teleprompter-only politicians, couldn't ad-lib a one-line kid's joke if their LIVES depended on it!

Re: COBOL is still running

"I still have an RL02 in the garage if they need some more storage."

hence my earlier comment about SIMH

Re: We've been saying an upgrade is necessary for literally decades.

see icon </snark>

Re: Is that actually what they need?

If you write PROPER HTML code that does NOT rely heavily on scripting (particularly NOT things like JQuery or any OTHER "modern" abomination that does the same thing) you won't have this problem.

I like tables with embedded 'style' values. It's easier to control the appearance of a specific page that way. And I keep any common CSS definitions *SMALL*. Anything more than a handful of things is TOO MUCH and needs re-design. [well HELL, _THERE_'s your problem! Your CSS definitions, when unmangled, is over 4000 lines! and what's that 16,000 line script thing DOING anyway?]

I have NEVER found a web-based thing that could NOT be done entirely on the server. Sometimes it's a little kludgy to force it, but that does NOT mean it can NOT be done effectively [and even efficiently]. Unless you're doing a dynamic stock ticker with charts, you don't need script to update it once a second (or at ALL)! And click-through-scripts RARELY need to be there. Hyperlinks and buttons with forms. DUH! [on occasion I've done an on-click but that was for embedded touch-screen systems, for which you control the browser and everything else about it, and if I didn't SPECIFICALLY think it was a better way to do it I would NEVER have done it that way]

And suddenly... your site looks good on Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Intarweb Exploiter, Safari, Opera, Konqueror, Midori, and even on mobile when you rotate the screen properly!

(minus the stupid-script and ridiculous-styles just about ANY browser will look pretty good with your pages if you don't totally bork the formatting and include the 'viewport' meta tag)

Re: Is that actually what they need?

since when would Oracle web front ends NOT support Firefox???

That's just WORSE than SILLY, it's ARSE-ININE!

Re: Is that actually what they need?

for MANY such situations, SIMH comes to mind... (assuming there's a working simulator for their hardware, and chances are, there is).

Back in the day gummints liked IBM and VAX and occasionally HP or Data General minicomputers. Later there was Sun and DEC Alpha and others I'm probably not aware of. So "how ancient" is it? In the worst case, if you can manage to hook up a tape drive or serial [or even ethernet] link to transfer stuff, SIMH might fix the problem...

Re: No so much COBOL as the tools

back in the 90's when I worked with those older systems I'd typcally transfer the files to a windows system, edit it with something reasonable, then transfer the files back. But as I recall the HP systems I worked on also had a decent visual editor, so it wasn't that bad to just use THAT. Although the program I used to access the minicomputer was called 'Reflection' (and was a DOS application) it ran fine in windows 3.0 and was easy to use to transfer files back and forth. Mostly I did FORTRAN though, and a report writing language called 'QUIZ'. I did _some_ COBOL which I literally picked up by reading the manual for it.

Anyone used to using Linux or one of the BSD's should be able to manage working on a mainframe as well. They _do_ have the same roots, unless you're one of those wimps that MUST use a GUI for _EVERYTHING_ (and wouldn't understand bash or command lines if they were face-slapped by it). Yeah I've seen mac users like that, even though OSX is FreeBSD underneath!

maintenance coding, though, is usually not hard if you are not required to write things from scratch. Then you can just take what's already there, and fix it, and use the existing environment to do it.

(How many systems have I done that with.... a LOT, from PDPs to HP/3000 to VAX to .PCs with DOS, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and even Macs)

yeah, they could PAY me, but I'm not interested in volunteering. This chaos is all SELF-INFLICTED. by OVERREACTING to coronavirus by SHUTTING DOWN BUSINESSES (which creates the layoffs), and it is _NOT_ a solution to a pandemic problem, and I'm going to LET THEM (the gummint, that is) SUFFER until they (the bureaucrats and politicians) LEARN THEIR LESSON! In the interrim, they can solve the unemployment problem by LETTING THE BUSINESSES RE-OPEN, since NOW is the time to do that anyway. After all, why "enable" them to continue with the BAD (gummint) BEHAVIOR, if they're addicted to MISMANAGEMENT and ABUSE OF POWER like that.

Or, they can PAY me.

Re: Firefox blocks tracking

"Wasn't this to be expected now Firefox blocks many trackers by default? Usage will look much lower than it really is if many counters can't count any more."

I like your thinking!!! And, it probably means HIGHER usage for Firefox by the security-minded!

Now if I could JUST get them to ABANDON AUSTRALIS [at least for those of us who HATE it]

{when you can ONLY feed at the pig trough, you feed at the pig trough, but you will RAPIDLY GO ELSEWHERE as SOON as something ELSE is available!}

Re: Remote software updates

if the device you are reflashing a boot loader onto is entirely encased in plastic, it's kinda the same thing, but in my case those devices were only ~$100 each, and not in orbit around Mars. Still for GPL compliance the end-user needed to be able to do the same thing (even worse for breath-holding I think), successfully, or create an expensive paperweight in the process. The only way to attach hardware to recover the device involved drilling holes accurately and soldering wires through those holes onto the board, probably ruining the purpose of potting it in plastic in the first place (waterproofing for ocean operation).

So yeah, major emphasis on "get it right the first time" and (somewhat) necessary nervous behavior and unusual religious activity might be involved.

Re: You can't call it MEX!

actually, it just makes me want to toast the crew with a shot of Tequila!

(even thought they apparently coded it in ADA... that wasn't necessarily a good idea, but obviously they overcame it anyway - so good! job!)

Re: Does it open at the front?

not quite twice the fuel...

a) tanks half full weigh half as much, need half as much thrust from that

b) tanks empty as you burn off fuel, even less required at the very end

c) going up you're accelerating upwards, which has a higher fuel requirement, since it's 1G thrust plus acceleration needs. Coming back, it's less than 1G thrust.

even if the payload coming back is the same (or slightly higher for that matter), it's a fraction of the weight of the fuel. And so the limiting factor here is fuel weight for the return trip, which will be considerably LESS than half of your fuel.

In an ideal scenario I would venture to guess that the going up fuel would be 3 or 4 times the coming back fuel. Then you add a safety margin. So maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the fuel is for coming back SAFELY, a bit less than 1/2. But still significant.

Re: I don't use common definitions either

"Mime artists are confined to working at home at present."

You know, a MIME is a *TERRIBLE* thing to waste!

Re: I warrant that the Corona Virus will not set fire to your servers.

as long as there's plenty of alcohol in that hand sanitizer you can expect a belch followd by "another, please"