Went straight to voicemail…
Posts by Charlie Clark
12169 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Apr 2007
Page:
- ← Prev
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- 125
- 126
- 127
- 128
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- 133
- 134
- 135
- 136
- 137
- 138
- 139
- 140
- 141
- 142
- 143
- 144
- 145
- 146
- 147
- 148
- 149
- 150
- 151
- 152
- 153
- 154
- 155
- 156
- 157
- 158
- 159
- 160
- 161
- 162
- 163
- 164
- 165
- 166
- 167
- 168
- 169
- 170
- 171
- 172
- 173
- 174
- 175
- 176
- 177
- 178
- 179
- 180
- 181
- 182
- 183
- 184
- 185
- 186
- 187
- 188
- 189
- 190
- 191
- 192
- 193
- 194
- 195
- 196
- 197
- 198
- 199
- 200
- 201
- 202
- 203
- 204
- 205
- 206
- 207
- 208
- 209
- 210
- 211
- 212
- 213
- 214
- 215
- 216
- 217
- 218
- 219
- 220
- 221
- 222
- 223
- 224
- 225
- 226
- 227
- 228
- 229
- 230
- 231
- 232
- 233
- 234
- 235
- 236
- 237
- 238
- 239
- 240
- 241
- 242
- 243
- 244
- Next →
SpaceX didn't move sat out of impending smash doom because it 'didn't see ESA's messages'
The wheels on the bus go round and... Oh dear. Chancellor Sajid Javid unveils spending review
Ah, this should totally reassure Euro workers: They'll get Brexit EU settled status app on iPhones from October
Re: Silly, but its fine
TBH, pretty much the whole thing is half-baked anyway because the government wants to use the status in the negotiations.
One of the many reasons why BoJo and his merry men are so keen on avoiding proper scrutiny of their plans is that they could easily lose a general election or a referendum if the UK hasn't crashed out of the EU, not least because of the number of non-UK EU citizens who've gained the right to vote since 2016. In some constituencies, along with nature taking its course, that's probably enough to flip from Leave to Remain; in a referendum the constituencies wouldn't matter, of course.
I think the "plan", and I use the term advisedly, is that once the UK is out, it's out and nobody's going to be stupid enough to campaign on rejoining immediately, no matter how severe the pain. Well, of course, the Liberals will campaign to do just that, but they're betting that they won't be able to persuade enough people to break their voting habits.
Google security crew sheds light on long-running super-stealthy iOS spyware operation
Re: Entire populations: State sponsored?
How come you ignored Russia?
Surveillance of the Uighurs in China is already so extensive that I'm not sure the Chinese need more. I'm also not convinced that Xinjian is a hotspot for I-Phones.
Israel is certainly likely, not necessarily for spying on the Palestinians, but because it receives such massive "military assistance" funding and already doing contract work for the US spooks, especially the stuff the US isn't allowed to do itself, like spy on US citizens.
But, basically, most governments are interested in this kind of capability.
Clutching at its Perl 6, developer community ponders language name with less baggage
Re: Comparison with Python isn't really fair
The library issue was a key problem, which is why the PSF sponsored some ports, but even then adoption was hindered for a long time (until Python 3.5) because Python 3 used more memory and was slower for many things and didn't offer anything new. That was never going to help overcome software maintenance inertia.
But I think that, in the end, we learned from the experience as can be evinced by the vastly improved release process.
I personally don't know of many libraries that transpile, though I'm sure there are some. For most developers without C-extensions six or something similar and universal support for u'' and b'' prefixes was enough. Certainly less work than, say, switching from unittest to pytest.
Re: Why exactly is Perl any worse than Python? : About efficiency.
Actually lots of parsers written in Python or Perl are as fast as those written in C, because they're largely wrapping C libraries. And this is one of the points of these languages: they're encouraging you not to reinvent the wheel. Yes, there will be times when you reach for a library and it turns out to be a dog so you do need to write your own code, but that will generally be the exception that proves the rule.
Of course, parsing gets harder and slower if you have to deal with unicode…
Comparison with Python isn't really fair
Yes, the move from Python 2 to Python 3 was botched but the changes in the syntax were minimal. They were still enough to cause problems and more work than should have been necessary to migrate but the core developers did at one point take the blame and do something about it. Now, with Python 2's EOL rapidly approaching the vast majority of projects should be okay. Some, of course, will continue to Python 2.7 (I know of some places still using Python 1.5) but these are large legacy systems with no access to the internet, so security aspects are minimal. But basically there was never really much of a discussion of 2 versus 3, but more one of "why should I invest the resources to switch?" and it took a while for answers in the form of features and perfomance to appear.
Re: Why exactly is Perl any worse than Python?
Languages are not all me too. They're generally written as a response to different problems.
There are lots of good comparisons of the two languages, highlighting the pros and cons of each, but at the end of the day it largely comes down to personal preference but C definitely isn't the answer for everyone's problems. While at the silicon level computers haven't changed, at the user level they have. For decades now we've had people needing to program as part of their day job and they simply don't have the education or aptitude to be able to use something like C correctly. But that doesn't mean that they can't write perfectly reasonable code in something else that internally relies on C.
The top three attributes for getting injured on e-scooters? Having no helmet, being drunk or drugged, oddly enough
Re: Of course people aren't going to wear helmets
It's also a red herring in the context as, fortunately, most of the injuries aren't to the head. However, the number of serious (including fatal ones) accidents/km is startingly high with these toys.
It's also yet another failed, fake green business model™: the vehices are expected to last for about 6 months, which means their CO2 balance is disastrous; they're not being used to replace car journeys; and the owners have to pay people to drive around collect, charge and redistribute them.
Hey, it's 2019. Quit making battery-draining webpages – say makers of webpage-displaying battery-powered kit
Re: At Charlie Clark, re: bells & whistles.
OnMouseOver hover events to make a menu appear?
So, like everyone using a mobile phone? I wonder if anyone's thought about this?
Sites I've worked upon have been through ARIA tests and needed only minimal changes to gain approval, not least because screen readers can take advantage of correctly used HTML 5 semantics.
So, it can be done, if developers know their stuff and are prepared to argue the case. As Bruce Lawson is fond of saying accessibility is usability.
Re: An easy way to save power...
I guess it depends a lot upon your definition. But, at its core, HTML5 was about the semantics. So we got <nav>, <section>, <article>, <video> and a heap of useful form elements. This was based on research done by Opera as to what people were actually doing. At least regarding the language a lot of the rest was about fixing things like defining errors so that behaviour across browsers could be more consistent.
I agree that a lot of the associated changes in things like Javascript have caused avoidable problems, but that does not invalidate the exercise.
Re: An easy way to save power...
While I agree that a lot of stuff that we're subjected to serves no one other perhaps than the designers, programmers or those who consider themselves such, I don't think that a return to 1990 is required.
HTML 5 comes with the necessary semantics to make websites that both look good and are comprehensible in other modes. I'm surprised that CSS is causing problems, presumably due to some poorly implemented transitions, I assume.
I advise a company in this area and the website has excellent performance and accessibility as well as looking good (modern and has lots of bells and whistles). But the majority of website owners and developers really don't seem to understand how important it is to do this.
Re: Good luck that
There still quite a few websites out there that rely on Flash (Channel 4's videos for one spring to mind) that miraculously work without it on IOS. Not that Apple's drive to remove Flash was only about security or performance. It was at least as much about control and licences, which is why its contributions to an "open web" more or less stopped once DRM video was possible.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson moves to shut Parliament
Re: Taking back control
This certainly seems to be the line of, presumably, social media fed vox pops.
Mind you, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition has contributed to this by steadfastly refusing to adopt a position over the key issue.
Instead of the government suspending parliament, it should parliament suspending government and forming a true government of national unity to take care of business until negotiations with the rest of the EU 27 have reached a satisfactory conclusion. Easy enough if you get parliament involved in the negotiations, something which May refused to do and which Boris won't even countenance.
I guess the plan is to try and ride out the protests, crash out and hope for a wave of patriotism in the ensuing general election.
Re: About Time
To be fair, no one is really able to reliably quantify the effects. The reports rushed out in 2016 backfired but more recent ones from things like the Official of Fiscal Responsbility and the Bank of England are not impressed by leaving and definitely against doing it on no terms. The other side, however, is full of what-if scenarios heavily dependent upon yet-to-be started trade negotiations.
To leave a trading bloc with which the country does most of its trade is going to be a huge hit, especially for industry with complex supply chains which see products repeatedly cross borders. Throw in the problems and costs are reintroducing customs controls and it's difficult to see an upside. The government is likely to be forced to spend and, hence, borrow more, increasing the debt and quite possibly driving up borrowing costs if there is a run on the currency.
But, hey, I've got an idea. Let's just do it and if it all goes titsup then we've still got our trust funds and overseas accounts, haven't we?
Female-free speaker list causes PHP show to collapse when diversity-oriented devs jump ship
The majority of psychological studies show that there are innate differences between the sexes. However, even the apparent innate preferences (observable in other primates) don't explain the study preferences in the West. Hence, the larger proportion of very good engineers and technicians in places like the former Soviet Union, India and Iran.
Re: White men complain that there are too many white men…
I've seen lots of radical and new ideas at conferences, including from young kids. Competence is not the same as expertise and indeed most of the best talks are less about cramming you full of knowledge than making you think and questioning your assumptions.
Reminds me that I've even been called out at a conference for making a joke about another programming language (it wasn't about PHP, which is already a joke ;-)). Someone thought this wasn't being inclusive enough and decided to report me.
White men complain that there are too many white men…
But there is presumably an irony embargo.
Most of these complaints lead to dumbing down of conferences. I know a few women in IT who positively resent this approach. If you want more women in IT then you have to focus elsewhere and start younger. Promoting the idea that diversity is more important than competence is a bad idea for technical conferences.
Audible hasn't even launched its AI-powered book subtitles and publishers have already fired off a sueball
Re: Clearly discriminatory here
I think courts are likely to follow that argument and, as long as Amazon can demonstrate that the results cannot be accessed separately, then I think they'll be okay.
As for the idea that transcription is only possible for companies with deep pockets, that's hogwash. Lots of the research on has been publicly funded for assistive technologies as good models are avaiable. If publishers wanted to, they could easily provide their own versions.
I'm no fan of Amazon (love my Kobo Aura One) but Audible and GoodRead.com were excellent buys for the country getting into digitall services, and there's no doubt that Audible has brought audiobooks to a much wider audience.
Trump attacks and appeals 'fundamentally misconceived' Twitter block decision
Re: Control is not Ownership
FWIW it was the court that insisted that the block be lifted.
If Trump would limit his use of the service to entirely personal interest (say gardening or gold tips) then he might possibly have a case. But even then not really because Twitter is a public forum.
As for partisanship: this has been Trump's successful modus operandi but it cuts both ways.
Currently for every one of his supporters who think his claims are valid, there are two who think he's a paranoid bullshitter.
Samsung Note10+ torn apart to expose three 5G antennas: One has to pick up something
Re: Ban nontreplaceable batteries
A lot of studies have shown that electric toothbrushes really do a modestly better job of cleaning than manual
Ie. minimal. They're a solution looking for a problem. There are so many other things to do first: clean your teeth regularly; use the right kind of brush for you and change it regularly; reducing sugary food and drinks (including fruit); don't smoke; getting enough fluoride either in the drinking water or naturally from things like tea (withour sugar, of course), etc. If you don't do that then difficult to see how an electric brush is going to help.
Over four decades with my adult teeth and no fillings yet. Or am I just lucky?
Re: Why buy a Samsung Note?
The Note was the first phone with a very large screen and a stylus was immediately popular with some people as a result and the first time Samsung led the way. The full-fat one comes with 256 GB and will take SD cards. Try that with an I-Phone.
Not for me, but they do have their fans as was evinced in the reactions to the withdrawal of the Note 8.
As browser rivals block third-party tracking, Google pitches 'Privacy Sandbox' peace plan
Irony
What I like in the article are the quotes from the tracker and advertiser also ran. Basically, how can you trust anyone who uses Twitter to talk about privacy?
As for the discussion about user profiles and ads, I'd like to see more research into the whole idea of whether knowing so much about someone really makes that much of a difference when it comes to product advertising. The general assumption is that it does and this is why advertisers are prepared to pay more for it, but I'm personally not that convinced. Contextual adverts are certainly the ones I respond best to. Of course, the two approaches meet in services like Spotify and Netflix (and boy do they both love our data).
I've thought for a while that Google has a greater understanding of personal versus aggregate data. For example, in most cities it probably has sufficient aggregate data to suggest where would be a good spot to put a hotel or a chinese restaurant, or cycle lane. I'm sure there's a great deal of trade in such data and find it strange we don't hear much about it.
Brit rocketeer Skyrora reckons it'll be orbital in 3 years – that is, if UK government plays ball
Cali court backs ex-Apple engineer who says he invented Find My iPhone and Passbook
Re: Why
Bell Labs was famous for it, and able to bask in the glow of the associated Nobel prizes.
It can make excellent business sense to allow researchers a stake in their patents and we're seeing this with some of the top AI boffins who would rather be cited on the patent than earn even more money.
About the only thing the USPTO has failed to accept a patent for is stupidity!
Once the principle of software patents were accepted, companies have gone mad for them out of the fear that if they didn't patent "the patently obvious" someone else would and sue them for it.
The patent for rounded corners doesn't come close to some of the software ideas or "business practices" that have been patented. If he was around today Pythagoras would either be a billionaire or in debtors' prison!
A challenger appears: Taiwanese devs' answer to Gemini PDA wraps a Raspberry Pi in a tablet
Shiny new toys take backseat in Android Studio 3.5 for now as '600 bugs' squished
There once was a biz called Bitbucket, that told Mercurial to suck it. Now devs are dejected, their code soon ejected
Re: A latecomer to version control
To be honest, they're largely equivalent with some differences in the detail, which is, of course, where the devil resides. I think we've all trashed respositories as we got to know the various systems but in the end, having any kind of repository is better than having none.
I still find Git positively arcane in comparison to Mercurial.
Page:
- ← Prev
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- 125
- 126
- 127
- 128
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- 133
- 134
- 135
- 136
- 137
- 138
- 139
- 140
- 141
- 142
- 143
- 144
- 145
- 146
- 147
- 148
- 149
- 150
- 151
- 152
- 153
- 154
- 155
- 156
- 157
- 158
- 159
- 160
- 161
- 162
- 163
- 164
- 165
- 166
- 167
- 168
- 169
- 170
- 171
- 172
- 173
- 174
- 175
- 176
- 177
- 178
- 179
- 180
- 181
- 182
- 183
- 184
- 185
- 186
- 187
- 188
- 189
- 190
- 191
- 192
- 193
- 194
- 195
- 196
- 197
- 198
- 199
- 200
- 201
- 202
- 203
- 204
- 205
- 206
- 207
- 208
- 209
- 210
- 211
- 212
- 213
- 214
- 215
- 216
- 217
- 218
- 219
- 220
- 221
- 222
- 223
- 224
- 225
- 226
- 227
- 228
- 229
- 230
- 231
- 232
- 233
- 234
- 235
- 236
- 237
- 238
- 239
- 240
- 241
- 242
- 243
- 244
- Next →