Posts by bombastic bob

am I allowed to say

NO, you are NOT allowed to say that... and I'm still laughing at your joke

(reminds me of an old 'book titles and authors' joke, something about a population explosion and 3 names commonly found in S.E. Asia, all strung together to make a funny phrase - a very very NAUGHTY funny phrase - rhyming with See Chuck's Tongue)

Re: Cisco Kit

where are those routers made, exactly.... ?

Re: APT41 just doing their international good service

yes, uncovering their flaws will really SCREW your future "social credit" score.

Report them, and you'll end up in a burnt pile of bodies alongside former Wuhan district residents...

Conspiracy theory says it was all part of their plan, which has YET to completely backfire.

"continuous development"

A sign that INEPT "DEVELOPERS" can't get it right the FIRST time...

Re: It Open Source so no worries

"I would imagine insurance companies may start asking what libraries are in place and what support agreements there for code maintenance."

I'd say "Nunya Business" and shop elsewhere...

Also, if a software shop is PRUDENT, they will HOST LIBS THEMSELVES and merge FULLY TESTED changes when necessary... and ONLY when necessary!

Too many cases where this JS "cloud sourced" "forced update" library HOUSE OF CARDS has bitten people in the ASS.

Re: Price Gouging: the free market libertarian perspective

that's not a very 'libertarian' argument. It's more like an ANARCHIST argument.

Libertarians aren't against regulating [they are against BANNING, which is a different thing entirely]. Without regulation you have chaos, and Libertarians don't want chaos [only anarchists and revolutionaries want chaos].

The basic idea is that I should have as much freedom as possible as long as it's not negatively impacting anyone else, and whenever it could (or is), that's where regulations happen.

Simplest example: smoking. While banning all smoking would stop me from having to breathe someone else's tobacco exhaust, if that person smokes where I am _NOT_ I am not impacted. Therefore, regulation to prevent me from being FORCED to breathe tobacco exhaust is reasonable [and of course I can deliberately NOT go to those places where people smoke]. A "smoking area" with its own ventilation system is one example, so that the smoke never leaves that zone, in business establishments where they choose to allow such things. But, it's the nature of gummints to want to CONTROL MORE, and so they ALWAYS do "the ban" or something chaotic (which then leads to THEM 'providing a "solution" to the problem THEY caused').

Whoever that was that claimed this was a Libertarian argument (justifying price gouging during a declared emergency) does NOT understand Libertarianism.

Re: The best way to fsck these scum

try reporting them to law enforcement, and not the hosting web site. maybe you'll have more success?

Re: Hmmm

no, the problem is _NOT_ capitalism. The problem is a VIRUS.

Re: Shirley

"This is the epitome of democratic, free market capitalism?"

NO. It _may_ be what happens when you don't regulate anything i.e. anarchy or chaos. that is COMPLETELY different than suggesting ANY form of socialism would "fix" this. It is, however, human nature, for SOME people to engage in deliberate sociopathic behavior, which includes profiteering and "price gouging".

'capitalism' or 'free market' has been REGULATED since forever, in one form or another. Normally it is self-regulating through supply and demand. When monopolies, unfair trade practices (including price gouging) and exploitation occur, the existing laws are generally enough to put a stop to it.

Just like there have always been thieves [even though it is illegal to steal], there are also PROFITEERS (even though it is illegal to do this) during declared emergencies.

THAT is simply human nature, for a small percentage of people to do such things, and has nothing to do with free markets. If it were SOCIALISM or COMMUNISM, it would be "black markets". Same idea.

Re: Obvious gouging is obvious

"As in any global, or even national, scare, gouging was inevitable and obvious. What else are all the twats with garages full of bog roll going to do with it?"

maybe their lawyers will accept it in lieu of money?

Re: How about supermarkets...

yeah that's a bit much... even if it's super-special-organic chicken

(I like legs and thighs better anyway - especially the dark meat)

(Surely there are NO double entendres in what I just said.)

Re: Leave them alone?

"And he feels he's the victim!"

yeah 'feel' the F word. heh.

This article was dated the next day (3/15), said that he donated over 17,000 bottles "after Tennessee officials announced they would investigate him for price gouging".

So yeah, the ban-hammer went a bit further than E-bay. Serves him right!

it's STILL wrong to profiteer off of items in short supply during a declared emergency. AND, as I mentioned earlier, ILLEGAL within the USA, punishable by up to 2 years in JAIL (as far as I am aware)

Re: Online marketplaces descend into wretched hives of scum and villainy

in the USA, during periods of declared emergencies, it's a violation of the law to (in any way) profiteer or "price gouge" or scalp or in any way charge grossly inflated prices for things that are in short supply.

So if these sellers are inside the USA, they cold be doing 2 years' JAIL TIME for such things.

I say TURN THEM IN! Then their stash will be confiscated and appropriately distributed to places that need these things that are part of the government, at the very least. [this would offset demand on the private sector and indirectly improve the situation]

Re: Virtue signalling.

reducing the bandwidth on an 110GB game FORCED WINDOWS UPDATE downloads will help

Now that I think about it, 110GB game images and kid/pet/selfy videos probably NOT the cause of any REAL bandwidth shortages... [and that could make what youtube as done a reaction to a problem NOT caused by them]

Re: Interpretation

even on very old systems, logs tend to rotate. you keep the last 10 or something...

Now, if there's some application that keeps creating temp files that are never deleted, someone forgot to enable "clear out /tmp and /var/tmp on boot" which is a simple fix, but I suspect it's not that.

Most likely just an old system with failing hardware. SD cards and hard drives don't last forever. Let's say 10 years of continuous use... that'd be about right I think, to kill off an early solid state drive... or just your average hard drive.

Re: This can't be Linux

yeah I wish that were true, but probably - since it's using LILO - it's a very very very old distro with a pile of uptime, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the SD card storage [assuming it uses that] or maybe hard disk [if it uses that] has enough bad sectors by now to create problems like this...

meanwhile the occasional fsck may have corrected things up until now, until drive-cancer is larger than free space, and, well, there she blows!!!

/me replaced hard drives recently on 2 different FreeBSD systems because ZFS warned me of their impending doom... and so got new brain-storage, a few months apart, the same 2TB drive that was going for for around $70

AND, I might add, I'd much rather re-build a Linux or FreeBSD system from scratch onto a new hard drive (or restore via a file-by-file tarball backup) than to replace an ailing hard drive from a Windows box... [hello MS? I need an activation code. No, I'm NOT running Windows 10. I have XP. Oh, you can't give me a code any more? What the HELL??? It's an OLD system and it came WITH XP on it... but you don't care? Thanks a LOT, Slurp!]

Re: "not giving Windows 10 enough headroom"

"If you don't want to wait, you can always run disk-cleanup manually"

how is this going to work well on a system that's in a kiosk?

*crickets*

and THAT is my point!!!

"maintaining windows" is *NOT* my number one priority if I sell furniture...

Re: Not really their fault

I easily fit a Linux image in 16Gb on a micro SD card with more than enough room to spare, with chromium, a web server, custom daemons, and short instructional videos, yotta yotta yotta, operating in 'kiosk mode' on a Raspberry Pi. Set it up properly [and config the browser to only check for updates after 1000 years have passed] and you're all set! Well, you DO have to code it properly...

[and if you're worried about the GPL, you can try FreeBSD instead]

Re: "not giving Windows 10 enough headroom"

"Just how much is enough ?"

'all of it' plus 10% ?

early on I noticed that Win-10-nic does NOT clean up after itself when it "up"dates/grades. And so you can expect it to grow like *THE BLOB*

"Beware of The Blob it creeps, and leaps, and glides, and slides across the floor..." [Burt Bacharach, 1959 I think - theme song for the movie of the same name - "The Blob"]

Re: The long, dark teatime of the next few months

"There wasn't even any tea in the supermarket the other day. Or milk."

I'm sure there were plenty of HOARDERS there to prevent anyone ELSE from having any before THEY get to it... (with nothing better to do than create shortages for EVERYONE ELSE).

as for Win-10-nic on a kiosk - it's like a self-inflicted wound.

got, Linux?

Re: Add to the singing ban

bagpipes are much preferred to 70's disco "music",... ESPECIALLY the Bee Gees.

(I wish I could brain bleach the disco crap from the 70's out of my memory - ~shudder~)

[I am suddenly reminded of a "banjo mute" - the best ones look like LARGE HAMMERS]

Re: Add to the singing ban

I find that leaving a radio on [when you don't have to be on a phone, etc.] helps me get work done. Usually it's conservative talk radio in the AM and music in the afternoon. I have an icecast server that randomly plays songs I've ripped on to my hard drive or I can set up a playlist easily enough, and an "internet radio" that can "tune into" my private icecast server, or any of a number of streaming radio stations for that matter.

Seriously it's a cool thing, doing the work-from-home with the radio on.

But... advice from someone who has done this a LONG time - do NOT TURN ON THE TELEVISION! TV is an attention whore and will RUIN your productivity.

I've worked on site a few times with people who'd recently been to China last December. One guy came back with a bad cold. who knows, it could have been Corona, but I don't know of anyone who's tested positive for the virus. I'm fine, he's fine, they're all fine, it was weeks ago, and for all I know we all caught it, and got over it. Or not. Can't say, because symptoms are often so mild you don't know you have it, or think it's just the passing flu crap (as usual), which I've had off and on for several weeks like every year. (hot showers, staying warm, spicy food, mentholatum up my nose, and liquor all seem to help).

And I might add, DON"T PANIC. No need or tracking people. That's just WRONG.

accuracy could be improved, disease state measured better, etc. - that is true, but also there is a general lack of accuracy on the INFECTION rate, which can only be confirmed via accurate testing. Since "accurate testing" is expensive, it only makes sense to test people who are at risk and who have related symptoms. Asymptomatic people really don't need to be tested, as long as they are aware that they could spread disease, so they should behave "courteously" and do reasonable precautions, not sneeze on people, and so on.

It's up to indiv9duals, and NOT "Big Nanny". Treat people as if they are intelligent, and it's a fair bet they'll act like they're intelligent. We don't need a "Big Nanny" to think and control FOR us.

Re: But I don't have a so-called "smart" phone.

it can only be tracked when it is ON. There's this thing called 'voice mail'. It generally works well when you do things like drive, etc. and leave the phone OFF (which you should do while driving, regardless). Then the phone is STILL good for use in emergencies, and you can listen to incoming messages when you get back home {or arrive at your destination, as needed).

besides, it's NOBODY'S BUSINESS where you are, except YOURS. "Big Nanny" can KISS my HAIRY FREEDOM LOVING ASS!

Re: But I don't have a so-called "smart" phone.

"It's time to track people's smartphones"

that's a reason NOT to have a so-called "smart" phone. And I leave my dumb-phone OFF unless I need to call someone [for an emergency, most likely, the only reason to have one on me as I see it].

If I want to know where I am, I'll read a map, thanks... (and I can print directions to wherever before I leave).

I need a *finger* icon with the caption "TRACK THIS!"

Re: Appropriate it's about virii...

here, have another

Re: Working from home guide

tightVNC lacks proper support, last I checked.

Tiger VNC was forked from it. [that's what I've been using]

Re: Open source never looked better

My customers who are on 95% open source setups [snip] are in a very much better situation today than those who have stuck with a 100% MS setup

awesome!

Re: The most simple way is not mentioned here?

RDP is interesting, if it's supported [it's likely a smaller business has HOME versions of windows, which don't allow remote-in].

There is a VERY SIMPLE solution, however:

a) VPN login to corporate network

b) VNC server running on the desktop [you'll need to log in first and leave it logged in, turn off those annoying lock screens, etc.]

BUT... if you run Linux or another POSIX operating system chances are you have OTHER things available, too, like ssh, "remote desktop" via the DISPLAY environment variable, and so on.

VNC is probably the easiest (so long as you don't lose the login on the desktop)

and when it comes to outright performance, remote X11 desktops are probably as good as (or maybe even better) than RDP...

[I do not know if there's an open source RDP server out there for windows, but there MIGHT be one for POSIX systems...)

It's also possible, on a POSIX system, to use something like 'Tiger VNC' to operate on its very own desktop. I do this a LOT to test X11 applicaitons. Run vncviewer on the main desktop, run the test applications on the tigervnc's X server with a different desktop (usually loalhost:1). There's really no reason you cannot have that secondary desktop running on a network-visible IP address, and then you just need to be able to VPN into the corporate network to access it.