Posts by Charlie Clark 13458 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Apr 2007
It seems reasonable to protect a good API
Which is why the majority of software specifications are open and royalty free? If you want interoperabiity then you don't build barriers.
I suspect one consequence of this ruling, no matter how much damages are awarded, will be to encourage Google to get rid of Dalvik. It's been working its way toward this for the last couple of years.
I seem to remember that non-US badged phones have always struggled. I suspect that Apple has a handy lead with Samsung second but only due to an almighty marketing push – too lazy to look for real data. I don't think an absence of tarrifs would make much difference for Huawei and they're right the various Asian markets are much bigger.
Huawei really wants to be able to sell kit to the networks. But, again, the US has always been pretty protectionist in this area.
Apple understands service lock-in more than most. The US school and college market have traditionally been seen as gateways for future business decisions hence the plethora of cheap licences from MS, Oracle, et al. It's also structured nicely for advantageous tax write-offs: where do you think the rebates come from.
That said it's not that big a market but Google's apparent success has obviously shaken Cupertino a bit and competition is good.
What it needs is a couple of major motor insurers to stand up and say "on the present showing we will not be quoting to insure automomous vehicles"
I think you'll find that insurers are pretty keen on autonomous vehicles. They know how shit a lot of human drivers and also the value of the data collected. In legal terms the case in San Francisco against GM is likely to be much more relevant than Uber's fuckup. Insurance is likely to be one of the biggest carrots for autonomous vehicles.
Sadly, people are not responsible, they need to know that breaking the rules ALWAYS invokes a certain, even minor, punishment.
I think it's probably a case of both carrot and stick. It's interesting to see how effective the helmet propaganda has been in some countries and yet you'll see cyclists in helmets riding like numpties. There was research into how ABS and airbags actually increased reckless driving and I think there is a bit of this with helmets.
no lights, dark clothing, brakes not working and no helmet
Sounds like the Netherlands… Until public policy consitently sees bicycles as vehicles and thinks about the kind of traffic management this needs there will continue to be half-hearted measures that are poorly enforced and misplaced faith in helmets.
Thumbs down for asking a simple question? Tough crowd today.
Have an extra downvote for being a whiny shit.
In answer to your question: firstly, metal tubes make pretty good Faraday cages; secondly, what about the all the existing bikes out there? Do these stay invisible and we simply declare open season on them?
A radio beacon would require less power than a puny set of lights that will get a cyclist killed on an unlit road.
A cyclist needs no help whatsoever to kill themself on an unlit road at night. Not sure how a radio tag would help there either.
But why stop at bikes? Small children and animals should surely also be fitted, right?
Or you could spend money reducing the likelihood of bikes and cars meeting…
As ever it's enforcement: in the UK this would include making sure motorists don't treat cycle lanes as parking spaces.
But, actually, this kind of solutionism is an attempt to avod the difficult and expensive problem of traffic flow management. There are very few accidents between cars and bicycles in the Netherlands, and the recent experience in Copenhagen shows that this isn't just a one-off.
actually thought methanol as a fuel (either direct or in a fuel cell) was still more dangerous than petrol as it is actually more flammable
You could very well be right because it has a lower boiling point, but also far lower energy density than petrol. But I think the design made this a bit moot because the engine never runs that hot. I never looked at this in detail so I happy to be corrected.
Seriously, if someone is going to spend £60k on a car, they don't need an £8k handout from the government.
Since when has need ever had anything to do with it? Lots of subsidies go to those who don't need them. Think of all the lolly that landowners like Paul Dacre get for doing nothing.
Elsewhere Mr Orlowksi has ranted about how subsidies for renewable energies act like a tax on the poor. I don't agree with all the arguments (simplified for effect) but subsidies almost always tend to lead to distortions. This is generally true but isn't itself an argument against subsidies as they can still help to change behaviour. That said, the subsidies for electric cars in most countries have basically functioned as tax breaks for value signalling.
Assuming that the boffins can somehow deal with all the issues and objections to hydrogen fueled fuel cells
Well, seeing as hydrogen is the main problem that's going to be difficult. Hydrogen just as too many drawbacks: low energy density, incredibly difficult to store and the tendency to destroy containing vessels. I seem to recall work being done on using methanol as the storage and cracking it to get the hydrogen. This would be great if it worked because methanol can be transported easily and is relatively safe and easy to make.
think the last 'negotiator' that had a sufficiently large pair to gain anything from the EU was Maggie
Maybe initially when it came to the rebate but her strategy became obvious and the rest worked around it. This meant Britain thought it got crowd-pleasing exemptions but was actually being excluded from the good stuff. This worked so well that they stuck with it all the way to the referendum.
Chrome OS is a more modern OS than Android which was rushed out the door.
I think they were both initially rather rushed. The fact that ChromeOS is gaining the ability to run Android apps indicates that the initial idea for ChromeOS of doing everything in the browser wasn't that well thought through either.
Kuvee fits the same pattern as the Soylent: nerds extrapolating from their own slightly odd needs. Not really much different to people who peddle crystals for healing, etc. for which there seems to be a market. But only in the Valley will you find a VC willing to throw money at something so "magical and revolutionary".
Given that Apple has a far less permissive attitude to user privacy, Tim Cook was commendably not-smug when he chimed into the debate.
Speaking at the annual Chinese Development Forum in Beijing on Saturday, Bloomberg quoted Cook as calling for stronger, “well-crafted” privacy regulation.
This should be a single paragraph otherwise the reference to Cook is unclear.
Basically, Trump is fed up with Chinese organizations ripping off, …
Not really as it has little or no effect on him or his business. But it plays wells at rallies and gives good photo opportunities. Remember the steel and aluminium tariffs? Most of the countries have secured exemptions but that didn't stop Trump posing in front of factory workers again. Of course, the exemptions will then be presented as a negotiating gambit gained by playing hardball. I suspect the China stuff might lead to more of the same and the Trump chumps will lap it up as long as they profit from the current upswing in the global economy.
More worrying for us all is the appointment of that cretin Bolton to replace McMaster as National Security Director. Trump is now busy filling his cabinet with toadying morons. Who knows where that will lead to.
bring[ing] coding skills to some of the Philippines's poorest communities
ah, bless, some condescending patronism. You obviously haven't seen how eagerly kids around take to new languages if, especially if it gives them an edge.
A different question might be whether the technology improves their lives, to quote Carlos Fuentes' "Christopher Unborn": Mexicans industrialise: you may not live longer but you will live better. But just try and take their smart phones from them!
No, because it wouldn't be solving the problem. All an IDE could do would be to provide contextual information in the chosen natural language.
Domains tend to have lingua franca, which is where we get the term from. For medicine it was exclusively latin and even now largely is. For chemistry it was for a while German. For diplomacy it was French. Etc.
Ruby was originally developed by someone in Japan. Not that I'm claiming that Japanese is linguistic any closer to Tagalog than English is because it isn't. Just highlighting that someone has already considered the idea and decided against it.
Mind you, anyone who's dealt with Microsoft's clusterfuck localisations in VBA knows what a bad idea this is.
Leaving aside the question of energy, Wilson said, it was a brilliant conception turned into a dystopia by the mining consortia
Sort of disqualifies him from the rest of the discussion: the dystopia was brought about by the mining concept's idea of synthetic scarcity. The blockchain is a good idea but nearly everything that has been built on top of it has turned out to be the typical solutionist shit.
Why would he go? He has a controlling share in the company that has great profit margins and a compliant board. Oh, and by the way, everybody who used the service agreed to the exfiltration.
If previous outrages have shown us anything is that we'll see a bit of slacktivism for a bit but the vast majority of people will continue exposing their personal data without a thought.
Where's the icon for someone sticking their fingers in their ears when you need it?
This just one of the many situations where the government wants to leave the EU but stay part of the institutions and have a seat at the table.
Have a slice of BoJo-Cake! You can eat as much of it as you like and you won't put on weight!
Congratulations on having the same grasp of chemistry and physics as a medieval alchemist.
S-level, since you ask, but a long time ago. Alpha sources aren't too hard to get, but targetting nuclei and getting reliable changes (relying on quantum effects) are why this isn't comparable with chemistry.
Au is also only "a couple of numbers" away from Pb
Au is 79, Pb is 82 for a start for that kind of transmutation you also want a stable isotope. IIRC Pt (78) to Au has been demostrated but seeing as platinium is rarer and more expensive than gold… Back to school for you, laddie!
Encryption is the smoke that the politicians use for a more egregious power grab such as rolling back civil rights so that it becomes a criminal offence not to provide all necessary assistance: password, etc.
The "crooks" will continue not to comply but that is, legally speaking, less of a problem when you can introduce the police state and enforce general compliance.
everyone to think that Vlad cooks children on a neurotoxic gas burner and eats them for breakfast.
While I agree in general with your arguments, it also needs to be said that the Kremlin does have an almost zero tolerance policy on dissent and imposes interesting sanctions as and when it seems appropriate. In this sense it's not that different to the CIA… But, warzones apart, neither tend to favour indiscriminate killings which carry the risk of significant collateral damage because of the potential blowback. Of course, the FSB has since had a lot of fun muddying the water thanks particularly to BoJo's inept handling of the situation.
Russia is a failed start inasmuch as it's difficult to differentiate between the mob and the government. So, even if the FSB wasn't behind the Skripal assasination attempt, it could still have been requested by above with the task given to the Chechen thugs.
Depends a bit on the kind of chats: WhatsApp adopted the Signal Protocol for end-to-end "secret conversations" (as have Allo and more recently WhatsApp). In this case there are no keys to hand over as they are on the devices themselves only. However, this isn't the case with standard or group chats.
Going after the keys, however, is generally a red herring. The spooks are generally happy to find out who was talking with whom and when. Going after encryption is a bit of red meat to wave at the base clamouring for "something to be done".
Polonium 210 and Novochek nerve agents aren't something you can make in a backroom lab.
Sounds like a bad case of false equivalence! The vast majority of chemical reagents can indeed cooked up in any half-decent lab; radioactivity isn't chemistry and shouldn't be compared with it as you need completely different equipment, but Po is only a couple of numbers on from Pb so synthesis should probably possible in a fairly small lab but still a lot more difficult than a simple chemistry lab.
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