Posts by Paper

US, Canada to figure out rules on cops and Feds accessing people's data across borders

Yes, and we're going to make the USA pay for it!

C: Everyone's favourite programming language isn't a programming language

Re: Nothing new, kinda pathetic really

And well, a lot of what we do as IT folk is copying and pasting existing samples to save time and effort. Wanna parse a text file in bash and/or C? There's a litany of examples out there that you can copy and it just works. Wanna do the same in Java? I'm sure it's doable, but now I gotta think…

Flutter flits onto Windows, declared fit for production

I tried Flutter, but...

I tried Flutter, but codewise it's ugly imo. Dart is a cool idea, but in practice the language as used by Flutter just ends up getting in the way than compared to Javascript (for those that love typing and verboseness, Typescript has pretty much fixed the pitfalls). The flutter plugins seem to be a bit ad-hoc, with mediocre documentation and with a limited API.

In the end I opted for React Native, whilst having some downsides (performance sometimes), it's pretty easy to do. Using React's function notation with "react hooks" keeps things very clean and small. The documentation for React Native and many of the plugins is all pretty well written, the process kinda holds your hand a lot more.

IR35 is the biggest threat to the contractor working model, survey finds

Weird system

Over here in Canada, if you contract and earn more than $30,000, you literally HAVE to register yourself as a business and claim your services as a business expense, and you're expected to charge sales tax to your customer from then on. Then you could leave it as business income and charge eligible items to the business (rent space, phone bills, internet, business lunches, new laptops, etc).

Why wouldn't the UK government encourage this?

You loved running JavaScript in your web browser. Now, get ready for Python scripting

Let's wait and see

Mainly a FE dev myself, but I really respect Python's simple approach and regularity.

Only downside is that the IDEs aren't quite as advanced as they are with JS and Java. Also the lack of inbuilt typing makes things more confusing (same problem with JS, but at least Typescript exists). I know Python has some optional typing tools, so we'll see.

Would be awesome to be able to use Java directly in the browser too, static typing FTW.

Computer scientists at University of Edinburgh contemplate courses without 'Alice' and 'Bob'

No thanks.

No thanks.

Microsoft's problem child, Windows 11, is here. Will you run it? Can you run it? Do you even WANT to run it?

Re: Linux Mint

Mint Linux is good, although I have to say I grew to love the Ubuntu Linux Gnome shell after a while.

Ever wondered what it's like working for Microsoft? Leaked survey shines a light on how those at the code coalface feel

Re: what was NOT said

Yeah I agree woke culture within companies can be irritating. However you don't have to actually express your political opinions at work. If you don't like woke people doing it, don't add to the BS by doing it yourself. Stay professional.

Re: "It sounds like some of these complainers don't know how good they've got it"

Sometimes it can be simple as which manager you have as to what your experience is. You can be having a great experience under a good manager, while your colleague who complains is having a bad time under his/her novice manager.

Huawei loses attempt to rescue CFO Meng from US clutches despite using 140-year-old law in High Court

As A Canadian...

I just want her gone. Send her back to China! "Accidental" release, "escaped", "chinese kidnapping" - whatever needs to be done to get her out, do it. You think America would hold someone like this for us? They won't even build a pipeline, let alone hold people for fraud against Canada...

VMware to stop describing hardware as ‘male’ and ‘female’ in new terminology guide

Re: Virtue-signalling wankery

Not to mention "memory leaks". Triggering to those suffering from dementia, at least for a moment!

It's silly though, I don't just change my behaviour just because it offends someone. There has to be sensible reason that what I'm saying is actually causing harm. Using terms like blacklist and whitelist don't have connotations of race, I never thought about any connection.

Re: Even for me...

We should have called them green and red lists (traffic light system).

Re: What about "hardware and software"?

Floppy disk is so emasculating

DEFUND THE SECURITY PROTOCOLS!

Surprise! Apple launches iOS 14 today, and developers were given just 24 hours' notice

huh

Apple gets it right? I switched briefly from Android to Apple. There were so many things that, IMO, needed fixing that I switched right back to Android. No regrets!

Life with Amazon's fitness band: Upload your half-naked pics to see how fat you'll look without exercise. You now sound stressed – relax!

Not necessary

I don't need an app to show me what I'd look like if I was a fat grumpy old f!ck.

I'm already there :D

We give up, Progressive Web Apps can track you, says W3C: After 5 years, it decides privacy is too much bother

Just remove the manifest too?

When the user goes to "Clear browsing data", just delete the manifest file, or start_url at the least, too... Next time they visit redownload. Problem solved. User may need to have an internet connection for the initial revisit.

Another anti-immigrant rant goes viral in America – and this time it's by a British, er, immigrant tech CEO

Mob is bad

This guy made a very clearly nasty racist rant and the concequence is social shaming and possibly a boycott of his company by a few. And he nominally got banned from a restaurant he likely would never return to anyway.

On the other hand that dog walker who called 911 - had her dog confiscated, lost her job, shamed relentlessly in every avenue online, and is facing jail time, even after issuing a sincere apology. Well she's a smallish woman and he's a large tall guy...

So yeah, society is backwards.

Imo, best thing the dog walker could have done is no acknowledgement, no action. If you say and do nothing, it's hard for anyone to accuse you of anything. Just walk away.

Also, top best thing is to not be racist.

Re: When will people learn

100% agree. Obviously racism is never good. But it's also not worth expressing ANYTHING publicly in this day and age, that isn't very privately between you and your best friend.

ZFS co-creator boots 'slave' out of OpenZFS codebase, says 'casual use' of term is 'unnecessary reference to a painful experience'

Censorship

I'm not discrediting the need for systematic reform, and - well - some self-reflection by society as a whole (including us white folk). I feel that the developer world is quite partisan.

At the same time, I'm a bit sick of social justice advocates deciding what can and cannot be said, what language is taboo or not.

Does policing the minutia of language really contribute to the needed change? Or are we potentially alienating possible allies?

Wall Street analyst worries iPhone is facing '2nd recession' after 2019 annus horribilis

Poor quality

Last year I ditched iPhone for Android. No regrets. Apple need to refocus on quality, because recently a lot of their products have more issues than their competitors.

It's 2020 and iPhone still can't do a basic file transfer, you either have to sync, bluetooth or email files to yourself, or some other contrived method.

Only because it's Apple do we still buy laptops with keyboards whos buttons are known to break. If it happened for any other brand we'd buy an alternative and just use Linux.

GitLab can proclaim diversity all it likes, but it seems to have a real problem keeping women on staff or in management

Diversity = a Nice-to-have

Well, diversity is a nice to have imo, I'm a gay developer so knowing a company is an open environment and not broish etc is encouraging; my previous experiences at overly broish companies haven't been great. If you're too different, you get judged more harshly.

Companies very often just do robotic diverse hiding but that alone won't work. It's a mindset on how welcoming and open the company is. It usually comes from the top down, so if the leadership is cliquey...

However it can't be at the expense of the company's revenue or hiring the right talent. If someone doesn't live up to their responsibilities, they gotta go. Nor should companies necessarily be penalised if diversity decides to leave. There's few of us, and it's a competitive world. Nor should it discriminate against white cis het men, that wouldn't be fair.

So the situation is not black and white. A load of women quiting could mean everything or nothing or 50/50.

Optional (un)chained melodies for those who like their TypeScript to be more assertive in 3.7

Why?

I get why Typescript exists, however does it honestly bring any real benefit? Does Javascript really have that many problems?

Google sounds the alarm over Android flaw being exploited in the wild, possibly by NSO

Testing!

Why doesn't Google implement every single kind of exploit, and those being used in the wild, and run full exploit testing against every one of the devices they manufacture after each update?

Google bans politics, aka embarrassing stuff that gets leaked, from internal message boards

Good

Good, all companies should follow suit. You are there TO WORK. Not to discuss how terrible it is being a white well educated hipster with a dog, great apartment and awesome wage!

Capital One gets Capital Done: Hacker swipes personal info on 106 million US, Canadian credit card applicants

Women + Queer equality

This is the first time I'm hearing of a woman and trans person committing this type of crime. So at least one positive takeaway is we are achieving "criminal" equality :D :| :D :|

Stiff penalty: Prenda Law copyright troll gets 14 years of hard time for blue view 'n sue scam

Re: Is there a lawyer in the house?

The situation is more like this: You tell your wife you're popping out for milk, but meanwhile you pop down a back ally where a masked man freely gives you a penguin fury porn DVD. You know you should probably pay, but it's already free everywhere else (Pornhub etc), and you just wanna see the HD version.

Meanwhile, the masked man actually owns the penguin fury porn. He then calls the authorities who sniff around and hear you m*sturbating to the penguin fury porn (who needs privacy?), and you get a letter either to pay up for "illegally obtaining said porn" or to go to court.

Given you don't want your wife, or community, to know - you just pay the $3k rather than reveal your penguin fury porn fetish.

Re: Who says crime dorsn't pay?

I think he should have had to pay $3.5m restitution. 0.5m just to ensure he'll always be downtrodden.

YouTube's pedo problem is so bad, it just switched off comments on millions of vids of small kids to stem the tide of vileness

Let the public moderate

If a post gets a critical mass of down votes, just hide it. I realise that's tyranny by the majority but it's better than waiting a week for such comments to get deleted.

Node.js forks again – this time it's a war of words over anti-sex-pest codes of conduct

Just don't be a doosh, don't take guidelines seriously

Long ago came to the conclusion that guidelines can be pretty much ignored. They're just psychological masturbation for the bored and untalented.

Just never be a doosh and 99% time you'll never hear about the guidelines anyway. And if that 1% time happens, just nod along mindlessly, offer a fakepology and throw out a compliment. Then promptly pretend the offended person doesn't exist.

And it doesn't hurt to at least strive to treat others exactly as we would want and expect to be treated, including trying not to makes jokes at the expense of others in a public forum.

Here's 2018 in a nutshell for you... Russian super robot turns out to be man in robot suit

в России…

In Russia, robot controls YOU!

Linux.org domain hacked, plastered with trolling, filth and anti-transgender vandalism

Re: Hopefully

@Garymrrsn: Yeesh all the replies to your post - don't people get a joke anymore?

Macs to Linux fans: Stop right there, Penguinista scum, that's not macOS. Go on, git outta here

Why?

If you own a Mac, you may as well use MacOS. It's basic Unix, does the same kind of things almost. Yes, yes, it's not free. The kind of development you do on them is for non free stuff like iPhone development etc.

I got my mac and my linuxified PC.

Manchester man fined £1,440 after neighbours couldn't open windows for stench of dog toffee

Re: An inspection by the RSPCA might ...

Nowadays you could simply record that and post it on Facebook and YouTube. A mob would soon take care of it for you.

As Tesla hits speed bump after speed bump, Elon Musk loses his mind in anti-media rant

The title to this article should read...

The title should read "A completely click baity article in response to being criticised for making click baity articles!"

Linux kernel's Torvalds: 'I am truly sorry' for my 'unprofessional' rants, I need a break to get help

I understand Linus. I too want to shout at many people every day! I too have done therapy to anethetise my sensitivity to stupidity.

How an augmented reality tourist guide tried to break my balls

Europe is overrated

I used to love mainland Europe, as someone from the UK. Then I moved to Canada and travelled around the Americas and Asia.

Now every time I go to Europe I just find myself annoyed. The people are often meh. Except for the Swedish and Portuguese. They're both awesome. Everyone else, somewhat including my fellow Brits, offer very poor service compared to America and East Asia, and occasionally are extremely unfriendly.

Even in conservative Asia no hotel staff made any comments or looks about the fact that my other half is also another guy. The one time we went to the UK, the hotel receptionist exclaims "The same bed?!". Pretty much had to whisk my Canadian bf away, as he was hangry and began proclaiming the entire UK was a piece of sh!t island over and over. It didn't help that the next day our train to my parent's was 2 hours delayed.

Boffins bash Google Translate for sexism

Re: My hovercraft is full of eels

Or Madam William! Don't be so sexist!

Nonsense!

Erm what?

1. On one hand the article seems to imply that Google Translate should be aware of job fields with respect to gender ratios whilst simultaneously complaining that STEM fields are male by default. What if there are more men in a given field?

2. Surely it would be more sexist to stereotype certain jobs as being male or female?

3. If I gave you a sentance using gender neutral pronouns, would you be able to tell me whether to use he or she? No! How do you expect the computer to be able to?

4. There are fewer female software developers than male developers. By far less than 30%. If Google has 30% female developers, they're doing very well.

5. If Google Translate had showed a bias towards female pronouns, would anyone have accused Google of sexism? Why is it automatically problematic to default to male pronouns but not female pronouns?

6. Relating to (5), why do some activist/far-left types seem to hate men so much? What did my penis ever do to you?

What can you do when the pup of programming becomes the black dog of burnout? Dude, leave

For me, burn out is caused bad managers. Examples -

Lack of feedback:

"OK, take another task then"

"Well the problem is when do I say well done to the team?"

Etc

Destructive feedback:

-360 silly review thing-

"Well your colleagues all gave you very good ratings and constructive feedback, however I think you have a very bad ethic, don't care about your work and seem to lack motivation"

Contradictory feedback:

"I need you to be able to do tasks without me having to check to make sure you're doing this right... -completes task-... "We can't use this, too complex, you should have checked with me!"

I've worked with very difficult CEO's but managed it due to having a very good working relationship with them and feeling their feedback was honest and impersonal.

I've struggled with managers who basically have a superiority complex and look down rather than viewing themselves as someone actually "managing" a team towards the goal of building a product.

Unbreakable smart lock devastated to discover screwdrivers exist

I think the fact that you can take bolt cutters to it renders it pretty useless from the outset.

Leave it to Beaver: Unity is long gone and you're on your GNOME

Re: Good riddance!

Touché!

Good riddance!

Unity was an abomination. They didn't want you to be able to rearrange anything, insisted that the logo be mandatory, etc. I was simply enraged by a Linux distribution telling me how to use it.

As Zuck apologizes again... Facebook admits 'most' of its 2bn+ users may have had public profiles slurped by bots

Re: I'm having trouble deleting my FB account!@

"Oh, wait, I never created one."

Hope you didn't give your phone number and name to anyone who might be using the FB app and decided to sync their contacts...

Deactivated mine, I could not bring myself to delete it yet as I worry about losing access to people I may need to contact again. Luckily I never did submit my number or sync my contacts.

I created a new FB account mainly for keeping in touch with close friends and family, but ensured that it contained no real data of mine, no public anything, etc. I wish I could dump the FB platform altogether but it's insidious in this modern world.

I don't really trust Google's social platform any more than FB.

Furious gunwoman opens fire at YouTube HQ, three people shot

Re: "odd how you didn't mention female wearing headscarf"

Wait, animal rights activists... killing people?! Slightly ironic, no?