Posts by bombastic bob

Re: "Consider upgrading"...

and regular Linux...

Re: No problem!

interesting point, I was thinking "just put regular Linux on it", maybe Devuan with a Mate desktop?

Or if I'm ready to deal with compatibility problems, I could maybe get FreeBSD to work on a chromebook!

In any case, all is NOT lost. Just need to switch over to a REAL OPERATING SYSTEM. Then if you miss Chrome OS, just load chromium browser by default when you start up...

Re: How much memory are they planning?

there is likely to be a cost benefit 'maximum point' on L1 and maybe L2 and L3 cache. going 1000 times the L1 cache size we typically use NOW might get you bragging rights, but I question how much speedup it gets you as compared to now, or 10x, or 100x the size.

We're almost "there" with respect to storage in (essentially) non-volatile RAM with SSDs. That makes an observable difference in speed. But if you spend only 1% of the processing time waiting for RAM bus cycles because the cache is 'empty', how much of a difference would it make to eliminate that 1% ? Observably by an end-user, not a whole lot. The price tag, however, WOULD make a difference.

Re: Oh dear.

The reason there's no PERCEIVED Moore's Law improvements is that the software really isn't taking advantage of the hardware.

With the exception of virtualization, a 6 core (12 hyperthread) Ryzen processor idles 11 'cores' nearly all of the time. All of those transistors NOT being used.

Occasionally you'll see something that uses them, maybe a very special-written game or an application where its author(s) know something about symmetric multi-processing and multithread algorithms.

"my Ph.D. 25+ years ago involved these neural nets implemented on chip,"

Yes, this puts yuo in a unique position to see why the article is relevant, that's for sure. But seriously, when will this translate into the user perception of "faster" ?

With the exception of natural language speech, visual scanning and object recognition, and other things that a ROBOT would need, most people aren't seeing improvements.

So to most of the world, Moore's Law is dead, but only because of perception.

And the biggest reason for that is SOFTWARE, not hardware. Because, after all, hardware has gotten 'wider', and not faster LINEARLY. And WAY too many people that call themselves "engineers" still insist on thinking in a straight line. Well maybe that's just PROJECT MANAGEMENT doing that, engineers are creative and of course think non-linearly, but you have to be able to turn that non-linear processing nto a program... and I haven't seen a lot of evidence of that happening effectively enough to give the user the perception of "faster".

(clogging everything with bloat and feature creep and changing the UI into 2D FLAT hasn't helped at all but it makes SOME engineers *FEEL* like they "did something" to "improve it")

Re: I'm seeing a much bigger crime here...

in the USA local and state gummints often heavily tax such things, "sin taxes" if you will (especially tobacco) because the powers in charge convinced the populous at large to authorize it in an election... and so "the will of the people" (read: the manipulation of the voters) makes "sins" more expensive "for their own good".

yeah I'm being snarky about it.

Re: Signing credit card slips in the US of A

under Captain Blackadder?

Re: What ?

otherwise he would have been known as Ewar Woowar.

I guess that's how you'd pronounce his name in "dog"

Re: Russian Spy?

the NRA is mostly

a) gun enthusiasts who simply like guns

b) people into hunting and target shooting and things like that

c) freedom-loving '2nd amendment' types that believe in defending yourself, because all that the gummint police can do in MANY circumstances is DRAW A CHALK LINE around your body and investigate the crime after you're ALREADY DEAD [in which case, carrying a firearm could prevent that last part, and make the PERPETRATOR DEAD instead]. So the FIRST line of defense is YOU. [and there should be NO restrictions on law abiding citizens defending themselves in a FREE society].

Anyway, 'infiltration' into the NRA wouldn't work very well, even if it was tried.

Re: I'm not trolling

This whole thing could be a stunt and he could have a $5M short in the works.

the S.E.C. monitors this kind of thing. If a corporate officer were to suddenly short stock right before it drops significantly, or BUY UP a bunch shortly before it takes a huge gain, the S.E.C. investigates whether or not insider information or stock price manipulation could have been involved. They're really VERY anal retentive about that sort of thing. If there was any dirty dealing, they'll find it. And as it affects a lot of people, they'd pass it along to a grand jury for an indictment. [or that's what they're SUPPOSED to do]

yeah, new conspiracy: he's so involved in the deep state, they won't do that, he'll get off and they'll just make it like he's insane, and this profit becomes his new golden parachute... while the MIBs and the Deep State get their side-step distraction going to mask the REAL truth. Heh.

now you're confusing me

Re: I'm not trolling

The 'general message' was that he was personally involved in 2 events, cooperating with MIBs, and was offered up publicly like some kind of confession.

First, the wall street+banking 2007-2009 crashing+bailouts and perhaps 'quantitative easing' [if i read the article correctly], and THEN the failed election meddling of 2016. So why put himself into the middle of a couple of infamous situations and insinuate the MIB's were working with him... and THEN "admit it" in public?

Evidence is surfacing about "the deep state". Now that it's probably on the verge of being opened up so everyone can see it, this guy's pretty much inserting himself. If 6 months from now the evidence says he's NOT involved, it becomes "just more fake news" that distracts and distorts the facts. If it's the truth, it'll be in all of the documents that are released over time via the Freedom of Information Act [and all of the VERY interested parties that constantly ask for more and more documents to expose all of this with].

Right now it looks (to me, and probably many others) like he's delusional.

Well, I've known relatively harmless people that have some pretty wacky ideas before. Many are harmless though. Some of them are religious people. So god or angels (specifically named ones) tell them to get off of drugs or go to church, no harm there. Sometimes you got to say "well, if it's true that's great, and if it's not, no harm" and just accept it as "that person's perspective". Not being able to know what's going on inside their heads, it could simply be ESP and the subconscious mind trying to make sense of it. So the mind forms an artificial construct with familiar things (like named angels and/or god). but then again someone who was a drug addict is off of drugs now, and that's not a BAD thing. [so no need to judge or get the white coats with the arms tied in the back if these people are reasonably sane in everything ELSE in their lives. might as well leave them alone in that regard]

Not quite the same as claiming you're in the middle of an MIB-related conspiracy, which unfortunately affects MORE than "just you".

Re: Uncharitable

Watch out to see if the price recovers and if it does who has bought shares at their lowest ebb.

Yeah I blame George Soros [even if he wasn't directly involved]. You know, the same man who manipulated the GBP and broke the bank of England [and many others].

Nothing like a short sale before some nasty stock manipulation via "press releases" like that... followed by a re-buy and 'wait for it to recover'.

/me points out the icon. you're welcome.

is every genius just a *little* crazy?

could be a late onset of schizophrenia [which usually manifests itself when you're in your 20's according to the online references I've found].

as long as it's "harmless crazy" nobody should care, though.

Then again... from the article, he got a PhD in philosophy from Stanford University.

Maybe it's just THAT driving "the crazy".

I suspect every genius is just a *little* crazy. But hey, as long as your crazy stays in your head, it could just be 'genius'...

/me going back to my 'mad science' now, muahahahahahaha

big brass levers look cool. They're easily seen from a distance, easily recognized for what they are, and in a smoke filled room (due to battle damage) can be operated without squinting a whole lot, using flashlights if necessary. Or just "by feel" because you know where each bell's position is.

Back when i was in the navy, in the 80's even, I commented about how the panels had these big analog meters on them. I immediately thought "we should have digital meters" thinking that tech had advanced. Then I spent some time standing watch on the panels, got familiar with how things were done, understoode more, and REALIZED that a 1/2" wide meter needle can be seen from across the room even when filled with smoke or steam, and you can get a general idea of what the readings are by the relative position of the needles. If you were forced to read a number, you could make a mistake in poor visibility.

Not only that, these old techs are BATTLE TESTED and have DECADES of reliability. In a battle, you want that. I can't imagine trying to manage combat operations with the touch screens. Ew.

Back to Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority". I keep mentioning that, yeah...

good satire is rooted in truth

and thanks for noticing

"Is the helmsman also controlling the speed?"

On the older ships you had something called a 'motor order telegraph', that big brass thingy with a lever on it, that says "stop, ahead 1/3, ahead 2/3, standard, full, flank" on it [also backing bells]. You'd have one for each throttle. So if the captain says "all back port, all flank starboard" you ring up the appropriate speeds on the indicators, and someone in the engine room operates the steam system accordingly.

If you have 4 shafts, then "all back port" means both of them, and "all flank starboard" is similar. But using 'all' even for a single shaft is common because people recognize that as a speed change order from the Officer of the Deck.

Perhaps the REAL problem here is the use of touch screens for something that was normally a bit more controlled, involved multiple people, etc.. You had to physically operate levers to send an order to the engine room(s) to make something happen. [this also means you can control the ship when the bridge is blown to @#$% and you have someone on deck with a sound powered phone giving orders to the various aux control stations, something that helps with a badly damaged ship trying to deal with it instead of sinking].

remember Three Mile Island? And the resultant melted reactor core?

One of the MAJOR reasons behind this incident was (apparently) that the various indications were on SEPARATE PANELS located across the room. So on one panel you see pressurizer level going UP. On a DIFFERENT panel you see PRESSURE going Down. Guess which one they were paying attention to? That's right, pressurizer level going UP [a stuck open valve indicated shut but was venting steam, causing level to go up... so they SHUT OFF THE FEED PUMPS to "stop it", depressurizing the core and then all hell broke loose, more or less simplified version].

So yeah, the throttles need to be in ONE place, where you have speed indication and steering, kinda like your gas pedal, brake, gear shift, and steering wheel are "right there" along with speed indication and engine parameters in your car.

But yeah, "modern" approaches like (did I mention it? OK I'll do it again - Arthur C Clarke's "Superiority") that FORGET the lessons learned in the past are ONCE AGAIN being done by the ARROGANT generation we have today. Almost as bad as it was in the 60's...

"How did such a design pass basic functionality testing?"

Some "whiz kid" millenial type probably *FELT* it "was modern" which AUTOMATICALLY made it "better".

He did not live through the 1960's and so did not know about LBJ's "whiz kids". Nor did he read Arthur C. Clarke's "superiority". He probably *FELT* his recent education made him WISER than his predecessors, because of safe spaces, participation trophies, and having his self esteem positively re-enforced all of his life.

Or something like that. And seeing EVERYTHING through a 4 inch phone screen, held vertically, which keeps you from noticing the surroundings... like a horse with BLINDERS on.

Re: Touch screens

outstanding analogy (ban from cars as well)!

Looking at the Navy's reaction, they're trying to avoid the obvious situation as outlined in Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority".

The U.S. Military has made bad decisions before. IN the 1950's/60's they removed guns from fighter aircraft, saying "missiles are superior". Very shortly after, the guns were restored. Why? Pilots DIED because they didn't have any guns for close-in combat!

That's one good example, and the U.S. military at least admits it F'd up and does the RIGHT thing.

So they deserve a beer! Not for screwing up, of course, but for REALIZING it and THEN admitting wrong and going back to something that WORKS, "old school" tech, but apparently BETTER tech.

Re: Its all in the temperature

Celsius vs Farenheit. off by a factor of 2.

Re: @AC - The SFC can kiss my taint...

Re: Apple and FreeBSD

"Please verify how well the two are able to earn a living and come back to tell us."

From my perspective, both seem to be alive and kicking

I've been using ZFS on FreeBSD for several years now. My 2 workstations are both "entirely ZFS" on bootup, and the server is UFS for the OS, ZFS for the data. I did that for a few reasons, making recovery a little easier being one of them.

ZFS tweakage isn't that hard. My server has 4G RAM on it. Works just fine with ZFS. you just tweek some of the memory footprint variables a bit to compensate. Slight reduction in file system performance, but reliability replication compression etc. are all working fine. But yeah an un-tweeked ZFS file system will consume 8Gb of RAM if it gets a chance.

Re: Brexit bollocks

@AC you are thinking instead of feeling. well done!

Re: Brexit bollocks

Unfortunately, sheep have short memories.

I would normally say that kind of thing about those who usually vote 'liberal' (or Demo[n,c]rat), when they accidentally 'get it right' and vote conservative (or Republican) a few times... but then end up going back to voting liberal again like a dog eating its own vomit, because they have short memories and aren't thinking for themselves most of the time (same in USA as everywhere else I'd guess).

it's also why politicians are so DAMNED MANIPULATIVE and LIE all of the time, use EMOTION BOMBS instead of TRUTH, divide people and get them riled up like "community activists" do, and so on. People don't think well while "emoting". And so 'sheeple' have short memories.

(but I bet their 'Emotional IQ' is WONDERFUL!)

Re: Well, you're leaving

the situation should be simple to deal with - just 'grandfather in' any EU citizen who's already in the UK and working at Brexit time as 'legal immigrants with work visas'. shouldn't be too hard at that point.

(seriously making this all harder than it needs to be)

As for academics, well, my opinion is sometimes VERY low, for often in the REAL industrial world, those who "can't", teach... [not always, but seems too frequent]. I've replaced academics before [with my University Of Mars "degree"] and had to deal with them mismanaging projects to the point of killing it off, because THEY are SMART and NOBODY ELSE is. That kinda thing.

But yeah you still need university profs, and so there's THAT. (Me to U. Prof: are you good at being a professor at a university? OK, do THAT then. Let ME do THIS...)

Re: Support Suggestions

maybe an IRC channel on freenode?

Re: Yet it still can't do box plots (box-and-whiskers)

maybe gnuplot as well?

(I haven't checked, but gnuplot does a LOT)

Re: Fourier transform?

I can think of MANY reasons to do a fourier transform in a spreadsheet, and I have done fourier transforms on data MANY times.

It spots cyclical trends. That's why.

CYCLICAL TRENDS are important, naturally occuring. Seasonality is a good example of ONE cyclical trend, people buying certain kinds of things at Christmas time. Yeah I called it Christmas instead of "winter holidays" and a big F.U. to people who want to complain about it.

So yeah, Fourier Transforms, a welcome feature.

Point is, if I do a spreadsheet of sales data per month, or per day even, and run a fourier transform on it, I might be able to spot trends that can affect how my financial decisions are made.

yeah I had to deal with a "UX" designer recently. He took 3 times longer than he should have to develop a FRACTION of what needed to be "DONE" by "certain time frame". I ended up taking over [being responsible for integration] to the point I just asked him to make 3 UI screens [embedded Web UI]. When he got those to me, I cloned them for the rest of the interface, and and the whole thing done in a few hours. during that time he apparently PANICKED and even started reverting my git commits. Finally I just gave up on him completely and asked him to create a single screen I was having trouble cloning from his existing code [which he did]. Lots of slack messages back/forth and him whining and complaining and "thanks for taking work away from me" etc. Well he did THAT on his own, through his own efforts.

And the worst part - most of the "work" was 3rd party libraries, which SUCK [things like jquery and 'materialize']. The features in use from these are really trivial, somewhat easily done with custom style sheets, and working around their quirks and limitations has generated a few hours of GRIEF FOR ME, whereas if I'd written it myself from scratch it would've taken LESS TIME and cost the customer less.

Anyway, VENT COMPLETE on *THAT*. 'UX' indeed. What a bunch of touchy-feely B.S. THAT is.

Oh yeah after his final deliverable he got the "thank you for your service we'll contact you" e-mail. We even had MEETINGS with an outside management consultant over this guy, how to get him to produce SOMETHING and what was going on. Just confirmed my suspicions, but it also clarified the right path and I think it's ok now (aside from the grief) because product started shipping yesterday!

well - I _do_ admit that the screens look nice. Maintainability is another issue, but even so, they look nice.

Still looks like an early 1990s software program, they really need to work on the look and design to make it beautiful

When you say 'beautiful' you mean 2D FLATTY FLATSO McFLATFACE FLATASS FLUGLY like Win-10-nic, Office 365, and anything Chrome excretes. Am I right?

(I am SICK and FORNICATING TIRED of every @#$% "developer" jumping on THAT failing bandwagon...)

A big *THUMBS DOWN* for not recognizing the SANITY of a "classic" 90's style WIMP-friendly interface.

Re: Avoid buying anything from Amazon

Or perhaps: "Avoid buying anything made by Foxconn".

hard to do sometimes. However, as manufacturing moves BACK to the U.S. (and robotics improve, etc. so as to limit labor costs), as tariffs make Chinese imports "less cheap", as Mexico continues to ramp up ITS manufacturing capability, and so on, COMPETITION with China and particularly Foxconn might resolve this.

Other resolvable issues and competing alternatives ALSO exist, but there DEFINITELY needs to be an alternative to Foxconn in order to force them to stop it with the child labor crap.

Re: Amazon Response

they quietly accept this, doing the "harumph harumph" when they get caught, pretending to be outraged, upset, or even just bothered by it all... and continuing to do business with sweat chops that engage in child labor practices like 19th century work houses.

If they were SERIOUS they'd find another manufacturer. besides Foxconn...

[As I recall, Foxconn is one of those companies (in)famous for having the '4th shift' that's off the books, where patents and copyrights are violated for "internal to China use only". Whether or not they STILL engage in those practices remains to be seen. However, ~10 yeas ago I was somewhat in the loop on that kind of thing and there WERE actual illegal clones made of company products for the company I was working for, complete with the company logo embedded inside of plastic because it changed the tuning of the RF elements by NOT being there]

Re: More taint in the Docker ecosystem

Run GNU/Linux AS THE HOST OS for Windows in a VM (VirtualBox is good, other options are available).

Fixed it for ya!