Posts by Periquet dels Palots

Age checks could turn internet into an ID checkpoint, complains Proton CEO

Age checks can be good

I thing age checks are a great idea to prevent under sixteens from looking at porn all day and thinking that's what sex and relations should be, and that being a porn performer in Only Fans is a great way to make some cash.

I mean all day but the hours upon hours they immerse in noxious social networks where they are wasting their time away, if not being manipulated by posers into thinking they are fat, that their skincare routine needs investment in expensive cosmetics, that those who do not dress appropriately or whose skin tone is wrong are despicable, that the earth is flat and vaccines are poison, or that they should outright commit suicide.

Not that sex is inappropriate for teens, it's only natural that they should be trying and eventually succeeding to have sex with others, and getting the occasional peep at a smuggled porn video, but their current deep immersion in porn is no good. Still, far, far more than porn, I think most of damage is done by social networks.

What age checks cannot be is nominal, but it shouldn't be too difficult to present an anonymous certificate that proves you are over 16, or over 18, without giving out your identity and leaving a track of the sites you've been allowed in or rejected from. The EU seems to be working out an anonymous system that could be enforced on hundreds of millions of Europeans, and I think that's great.

And with kids and teens in the proper places and accessing the right materials, maybe adults would not need to be patronized into games and movies oozing violence but lacking anything that prudes deem inappropriate for kids ;-)

What surprises me is that so many people don't ever flinch at the idea posting all their intimacies in Facebook, Instagram or whatever, being tracked by every site they peep in, and admit being ratted by their car, their phone, their security cameras or their very fridge, but find it intolerable to disclose if they are kids or not.

The Roomba failed because it just kind of sucked

How much does a home cleaner make per hour? It is 15€ or less in Spain, so for 250€ per month you get your flowers scrubbed, your carpets vacuumed, your bathrooms cleaned, and your shirts ironed. It is a sound investment in convenience, but especially one in conjugal peace that will one day save the expense, trebled.

Blue Origin to fly another 90-year-old into outer space

Space tourists should probably go to hell for their beyond lavish waste of resources and blatant disregard for the world's welfare. But hey, if I had to fly into hell to flaunt my triumph over lesser men, an erect penis shaped rocket would definitely be the way to go.

For a true display of wealth, dab printer ink behind your ears instead of Chanel No. 5

Re: A Word for the EcoTank

I bought an Ecotank too. It came with a full 250ml of black ink, and about as much color ink. It cost quite a bit more than a replaceable cartridge model, but hey, how much Chanel could I swap for all that ink?

After 2 years and almost 3000 pages printed, more than half the black ink remants, and maybe 80% of color ink. And that's without any cartridge changes. Because Epson is not superinterested in selling me cheap ink bottles that last forever, it only uses what it needs.

That is such a relief coming from a detestable Canon Prima that was equipped with 5 color ink cartridges plus black,. That ittle POS always mixed in every color even when printing BW documents. Every 30 pages, or so it seemed, printing stopped because the printer wanted to be fed with some color or another.

If you don't want to be ripped off with print cartridges, avoid them altogether, and pay the vendor for what the printer costs. You cannot expect to pay 50€ for a color printer and scanner with wifi and internet and who knows, and truly believe you've covered the costs.

30 percent of world agrees not to require onshore storage for e-commerce customer data

Re: So...

GDPR, AFAIK, does not *force* you to store customer data in EFTA territory, but you can only store it in countries that have committed to respect the privacy rules, or failing that, in companies that have committed contractually to do so.

Python swallows Java to become second-most popular programming language... according to this index

Re: Sin tax

I think I agree.

I've done my fair share of Python development, as well as some C/C++, some Matlab and just a little Javascript.

ES6 Javascript has much of the feeling of Python. If you jettison the old clone-and-modify class model and enforce the classes, I think it feels quite like a solid language and can really be good to teach (and use) good software engineering.

Everybody has a good ES6 (and later) engine in their devices, be they Win, Lin, Android, macOS or iOS. It can be used to build decent platform independent UIs without a lot of effort. It runs very fast. And app distribuition can be as simple as a zip file.

I wish Microsoft built a simple IDE for Javascript and include it with Edge. Mostly everything is already in place, they just need to add a simplified copy of the VSCode UI, an editor, and a little handholding code that sets up the boilerplate stuff needed for a new project. Wrap it in a PWA, and you have a new QuickBasic for both kids and adults, with a vastly larger scope.

I see quite a bit of misinformation in your post.

Java is in no way stigmatized and rejected. Mostly no destop applications are built with Java, but a huge proportion of Web Apps are built with Java in the server. Java EE seems to precipitously dropping in popularity, but that is because Spring is easier for development, deployment and maintenance, and Java EE Web UIs are anchored in the turn of the century.

Similarly with PHP. It is behind more than half the worlds web sites, mostly due to the popularity of Wordpress, but not only.

The problem with Qt (or WxPython or whatever) not being a system library is that you will have to distribute it with your application -- and app distribution is by no means Python's forte. Also, it turns your hundred-liner into a half-gig behemoth, plus it throws platform independence down the drain, so you need to distribute different builds for every architechture you support. And then, all that dance with Pyside vs PythonQt and having to choose buggy and incomplete vs expensive.

Samsung Mega 6.3: Enter the PHONDLESLAB

Many guys around here seems extremely worried about what people may think about them, and profer all sorts of counsel about what is proper or not. Wearing a jacket is a nono, a large phone is a nono, Range Rovers are a nono... Was there any conclusion about 6-inch dangly bits?

Well, I do have a Note 2, and you can put it just fine in the front pocket of chinos or jeans that are not tight. The very prejudiced around here probably have somerhing freudian against wearing tight pants, so I think the Note 2 would suit their wardrobe just fine. Now, the part about being seen talking into them might be tougher to handle...

Shirt pockets are bad, unless for some other freudian misbalance you want to see your 6-inch thing sink in the toilet.

I have a 7-inch tablet that I used in combination with an iPhone 4, but the poor thing is not getting much use now. The Note 2 has usurped her place in my petty little heart. By the way, it has a 1280x720 pixel screen, which I always found very pleasurably clear. The same resolution in a smaller screen can only look better. Not "Retina" level, but who should give a fuck about Apple marketing when it looks so damn good.

German boffins aim to burn natural gas - WITHOUT CO2 emissions

Re: pointless stupidity

I agree about the stupidity of the device, and the ruthlessness of the laws of thermodynamics. The rest of your comment does not make much sense. Water already evaporates off the seas at rates gigantically larger than the participation from burning fossile fuels. And it precipitates out of it when it rains, which I have not seen CO2 do yet in this planet.

Re: pointless stupidity

Says who?

Wow, a nameless poster in a second rate blog claims to know all about climate change, while 99.9% of climate *scientists* know nothing and only push their agenda. Quite an achievement for someone that cannot understand the difference between "too" and "to" or "off" and "of".

Yeah, I know, Einstein and dyslexia and all that. Or is it that the ignorant feel comforted in siding with any far fetched opinion that will paint the really intelligent and knowledgeable as jerks?

Now Spanish sperm takes a kick to the cojones

Re: Employment policy

It looks safe to assume you don't know shit about Spanish standards, or what can be done in Spain in 20 years, and that you are a racist POS. The worst to you.

Stroustrup on next-gen C++: I didn't want to let go of my baby

Kettle & Pot

I find it ironic that Bjarne should complain abot the bad quality of books that teach C++. He should know well, as his own "The C++ Programming Language" is the most unfathomable book ever. It does not pretend to be a learning tool, but a reference tool, I know, but it may as well be written in Sanscrit. The explanations might be a marvel of concission and perfect software engineering, but while I can picture the author jerking off in self satisfaction, for the less gifted like me, they read like infinitely recursive and cross-jumping blabber. Any search for enlightenment tends to become a hopeless expedition into the bowels of the language where the most important discovery is how little you know, how much you ignore, and how difficult it will be to advance.

So, I have not looked at his new C++ teaching book, but I don't think Mr. Stroustrup's teaching abilities are very brilliant.

I use C++ every day, and it tends to make me feel I am very stupid. Maybe I am, and that is why I appreciate languages that make me feel smart.

Sharp punches out über-retina phone screen

Saying über is so 2000's...

Über x Retina = Cliché^2

Killers laugh in face of death penalty threat, say US experts

Re: "is there much of a difference?"

Smothering with a pillow?

Seriously, though, this very debate stinks of right wing righteusness. Capital punishment stinks because it turns your country and its citizens into murderers too. The very discussion of the financial details while obviating this is extremely disgusting.

There is no capital punishment in any western european country I can think of, possibly not even for life inprisonment (30 years max in Spain, with posibility of parole), and the assasination rates are lower by far than in the US of A.

Leo DiCaprio slated to play Turing in biopic

Single handedly? My, no! She will be an expert in martial arts, and will fly through the air in bullet time cutting the heads of three adversaries in one go with her sword while she kicks the balls of three SS men three times her weight. All while our our absent minded hero stares oblivious into the nothingness, mentally computing some tough algorithm that will lead them to the end of level boss.

Foxconn warns phones prices will rise

Laboral conditions certification for goods at the border

Exposing the exploitation is not the only thing to be done.

We have to demand from our governments that they impose conditions for imports, so that nothing can make it through the border, or will be heavily levied, if it has not been produced by workers in certified good working conditions.

Of course, prices would rise as near slave labor is abolished, but our own industrial workers pretending to benefit from decent social conditions might benefit as the working conditions grew more uniform worldwide.

Apple not yet dominant enough for anti-trust action

Even if not dominant, they may fall under the Antitrust Eye

Under USA antitrust law you can land in hot water for anticompetitive behavior even if you don't have more than 50% of the market. Initiatives to actively harm the competition also count, such as inopinately changing the rules you impose for other to access your markets, producs or services , cherrypicking concurrents to markets you create, blocking technologies not because you don't need them, but provably to harm a competitor, altering protocols to lock out the competition, lying about the competition, etc.

Many things Apple is doing (I don't say they've done ALL of the former) may warrant a deep look by the antitrust commision. Now, they may be guilty, or not, but maybe soon that will have to be decided.

Nokia C5

Navs & Small Screens are OK

Navigation is not only for cars (where you do need a large screen for comfort). When you're in the tube, or walking around, particularly in an unknown city, it is immensely useful to have online navigation. And with the phone in your hand, the small screen works OK.

OpenOffice 3.2 - now with less Microsoft envy

To hell with the cloud!

I have just returned from a long trip that took me to the US and the UK. No internet when away from Spain, unless I want to pay something like 10€ PER MEG. I pay in Spain 12€ per month for unlimited access (cellphone only).

We better hold on to our native apps and storage for a while: at those prices, the Cloud is nothing more than a few stratospheric cirrus. I hope that, like in the real world, they signal a change of weather.

ps/ Funnily, sending SMS from the UK was actually cheaper than sending them from Spain, though.

Android to overtake iPhone in 2012 - analyst

iPhone bites the dust?

Funny how iPhanboys have jumped at the chance to bite at the heels of Android. Poor things, it will be hard to endure watching how the Apple of their i's loses its stardom. But unlike WM, Android does not suck, and is free, which makes defeat but inevitable.

Anyway, be happy, my friends: the less of you that have It, the more special it will make you feel, compared with the unwashed and unenlightened masses that will do with Android. And His Highess will be able to control you even more tightly. And you will never, ever forget those ego trips you enjoyed when flashing your 2G iPhones in the train. Ah, those were the times!

You can also rest assured that, even if the iPhone had but half the users of Android, it is just one manufacturer, and at the prices it charges it will still be siphoning titanic masses of your cash into their pockets. So all is not lost!

Nokia lets operators screw with customise the N900

Operator customization not out of reason

> Never mind, back to tinkering with the freerunner then :(

You will certainly be able to order an unlocked unit directly from Nokia or at Media Markt, and you will be able to do with it whatever you please.

An unlocked unit will surely be quite a bit more expensive than a Vodafone or Movistar branded one, of course, but that is because the operators have advanced quite a handful of money. I think that kind of buys them the right to customize the appearance of the phone - although I agree that the Vodafone Live button is plain idiocy. 99% of the customers won't notice, anyway, and the ones who notice can a) buy unlocked or b) unlock.

Masked passwords must go

Shoulder surfing?

Oh, please, the risk is not only unknown passersby peering over your shoulders. There are many, many, many occasions when you're sitting at a table with your boss, a coworker, a friend or your boyfriend and you just do not want them to see what your password is.

It is true that password obscuring is often overdone -- like when being forced to type in blind a 50 character long Wifi password, TWICE, when most likely you're alone and not only there is no need to get the password right two times, but getting it wrong once invalidates it.

What should be standard is a button (or key combination) to switch to clear password mode. Obscured should be the default, of course, because it would be rude and or embarrasing to switch to obscured when you are sitting with your boss or coworker... or boyfriend!

(Paris because she surely has in her email many things to hide)

Vodafone does close-up magic on roaming charges

Vodafone's Impressive Creativity

These tariffs must have been concocted at Vodafone Spain. Their spanish unit shows impressive productivity and astounding creativity in this aspect.

They have a seemingly endless stream of new tariffs being disclosed all the time, ever more obscure. It is from difficult to outright impossible to know how much a telephone call will cost: it depends on your contract, the time of the day, the day of the week, whether you are calling a landline or a mobile and what company that mobile is on, the number of calls have you made so far, if you are calling from your home cell, if you are calling to an established clique of Vodafone friends, and much more.

Every parameter can be sliced and diced in several ways, at different prices, with different bonuses, fixed and progressive, making the outcome even less predictable. And with some factors being just impossible to know, like what cellphone company you're calling, the only certainty you have is that it will be expensive.

I've seen Vodafones pricing in the UK, and it is so vastly more simple that makes me want to cry.

MySQL daddy seeks post-Sun Oracle independence

Licensing nightmare?

How do multiple MySQL providers mesh with MySQL's strange licensing? MySQL is technically GPL, but unlike other GPL apps, they consider whatever MySQL scripts you write to be MySQL extensions, and thus subject to the same license. Except for PHP or paid commercial licenses. Or something like that.

So it is somewhat as if all programs written in Python had to be GPL unless money was sent to the Python foundation.

How will a second company providing an alternative database that is based on MySQL code cope with that? If MySQL's ad lib interpretation of the GPL stands, MariaDB may be only used for GPL projects, or up to two commercial licenses may come into play.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how this dizzying distortion of the accepted rules has been accepted for years. The world should have moved to PostgreSQL long ago.

Apple prepping 32GB iPhone 3.0?

Apple FM? Ha!

It all sounds very good, and the iPhone upgrade appears to be going to be well worth it.

Still, i don't believe the FM bit for a second. Never has Apple offered FM radio in its iPods, although it would've been inexpensive and widely appreciated, and I don't think they will start now. A free source of media content that is not under Apple's control? FM radio must give Jobs the creeps.

Color me shocked if the iPhone comes with FM and, if it can *RECORD* from it, please, urgently send to me the paramedics.

Apple prepping 3G laptops?

More bills? AAAAAAARRRGH!

They can take the data card and stuff it. What's wrong with making it easy to use your cellphone as a 3G modem, using Bluetooth or Wifi? Why tie your WAN access to one device? Why carry on two devices with separately billed WAN connections?

The artificial limitations imposed by the network operators pretend you pay three, four or even five times for the same service: mobile voice, cellphone data, laptop data, home data, and home voice!

With the economy in total disarray, pretending that customers sign up for yet another contract for a service they are already enjoying is beyond ludicrous, it is abusive. What I would like to see is some consolidation and lower prices, not more bills.

(Paris, because she does like to pay)

Open source closes gap on Microsoft's next Silverlight

Silverlight moving target

I think Silverlight is better than Flash -- at least, most of the specs are open. However, it seems like Moonlight will never be enough: by the time they got out 1.0, there were absolutely no Silverlight 1 compliant sites left on the web: all had moved on to Silverlight 2. Now that Moonlight 2 is coming, Silverlight 3 will arrive, making it again meaningless. And on, and on?

It is quite likely that even Windows users are not hitting Silverlight's moving target. What proportion of computers are Silverlight 2 enabled today? Probably not that many.

Microsoft trades goodwill for TomTom Linux satisfaction

With this timing, this is against Android

Android is arriving, and it's going to wipe Microsoft out of the cellphone business. It will also kill any hopes it had for media boxes, and hurt Microsoft a lot in industrial computing (handheld terminals, SCADA systems, lab equipment, etcetera).

The forces behind are titanic. Google, China Mobile, Vodafone, Telefónica, T-Mobile, Motorola, Samsung, LG, Toshiba, Sony... Their combined worth is A LOT of money. Microsoft cannot go against all them. By picking TomTom, it has been inexpensive for Microsoft to fire a resounding salvo against everybody that means to use Linux in their products. To me it reads as:

"you might be giants with great technology, but I have plenty of tiny pebbles I can plant in your shoes to make your life miserable -- come to me, and all will be dandy".

Toshiba wows crowds with sexy touch smartphone

Count me in for Android, out for WM

The hardware looks fantastic, but WM6 needs much more than a little make up to make it palatable. I have an HTC Touch, and it can fool you at most for a very few seconds before you realize that Windows CE is just there, almost unchanged for YEARS, with the same bugs and defects it had ten years ago.

As for how many iPhone killers we need before we go to iPhone, well, it is an intelligent comment. However, I don't want to go for iPhone as long as Apple censors contents (iBoobs out, iFart in nonsense), censors functionality in apps, disallows virtual machines, disallows Flash, disallows alternative music shops, disallows alternative software shops, disallows alternative media players, limits communications with your own PC, has no bluetooth stereo profile, has no good support for SMS/MMS, has no multitasking, has a shitty camera with no video, has no cut and paste, has no memory card reader,...

With the other platforms these limitations are either not there, or may mostly be lifted by installing additional software, but the iPhone is Limited by Design (TM).

Silverlight for Linux hits with Microsoft punch

Silverlight 1?

I installed Moonlight in my Linux computer a couple months ago, but I have never been able to test it because I've yet to find a site that uses Silverlight 1. Everything I've found is Silverlight 2, and refuses to run under Moonlight.

I would've liked to test it with Obama's inauguration, but I did not watch it Live, and the next day all the video links I found in whitehouse.gov were to YouTube, (And I'd say whitehouse.com does not use silverlight, either, but that is another story ;-)

PS3 DVR add-on launch delayed

Too expensive, too limited.

>Oh, and um, it means I get a DVD player, BluRay player,

>music/video server, PVR etc all in one box, with ONE remote.

>Win Win Win

Sure, for 500€, with only 40G HD space to be shared with games, and no means to record DVDs. Not many HD shows in that disk, for sure, and don't think Sony will allow recording to an external USB drive. So it requires a 50€ to 100€ for a new 2.5" HD, and a user upgrade which the general public will likely not do.

"Win, win, win" is what Sony would like to sing, but that won't be just now. It is a tempting package, true, but far too expensive. Maybe Sony will surprise us with a new PS3 with new chips, PS2 retrocompatibility, smaller enclosure and larger disk at a lower price... Don't hold your breath, though.

Clash of the compacts: Eee vs Air

An Apples to eeePears comparison

5x faster, 3x better screen resolution, 4x screen size, 4x the RAM and built-in bluetooth for 5.5x the price. Thus far, it is more or less balanced.

The RAM and bluetooth advantage can be voided by spending 100€ in RAM and a BT dongle, reducing the price ratio to only 4.5x for a similar speed and screen advantage.

but then...

no Ethernet, only 1 USB (eee has 3), no modem, no expandable RAM, no mini-PCI, no card reader, 1.5x the weight (though similar volume), and no preinstalled apps, and the fact that the price is not only higher, but really far out of any sensible budget.

Adding apples to pears and dividing by oranges, the winner is...

the eeePC!