Posts by Philip Lewis 991 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Aug 2009
The rise of "The Head Girl", a specifically egregious and useless form of humanity has been written about by more than one. The more that are crushed and fall to their level of incompetence the better. That said, I'm sure she'll be leading some other company to disaster very soon :(
I am an iPhone6 user ... the SE looks like a killer machine to me. Those of us not on the upgrade merry go round will see it as a very, very good upgrade. It's a an upgraded 7 rather than something new and bleeding edge (the 12 one assumes).
I am sure the 12 will be awesome, but it won't be my new iPhone.
I can remember working at a client in the 80s, where we were allowed 2 compiles per DAY! This is the sort of limitation that encourages just the mindset and rigour you describe. I will admit to having written programs of several thousand lines that (s) compiled first time and (b) passed testing first time. We cared back then about what we wrote because the systems we wrote were the systems that WERE the company. Not surprisingly, many decades later, these systems, the legacy systems, are still the systems that decide if the company does business tomorrow.
As an afterthought, in Michael Lewis's book Flashboys IIRC, quite a bit of the story partially revolves about "Russian programmers" and why they are so well respected. It seems they would have all been excellent COBOL programmers, as planning, rigour, structure etc. are part of their skill set.
Which reminds me of Lewis's first book, Liar's Poker, which took place just down the corridor from my office at Goldman Sachs. At the time (1986) we were establishing the very basis for the GFC of 2008 and the entire system was written in --> FORTRAN. We had no Russians, but we really sweated the details and performance of the instrument valuation calculations.
It was once quipped, that ultimately, a turntable is merely a device for testing wow and flutter. Thus, having tested the available options I went for a Linn Sondek - https://www.linn.co.uk/sources/turntables - and yes, mine is over 40 years old. Amazingly, it still works and sounds great when I play some of my old vinyl. For the interested, it's the legendary Grace 707 coupled with a Dynavector MC cartridge.
The rest of the kit is getting a little aged now, but then so is my hearing. It's still worth the expense and effort I expended all those years ago.
I realise techies like to pooh pooh the audiophile world, and there is some cause to be sure. Two generations have grown up thinking MP3-128kb is what music should sound like and who have no idea what it is supposed to (or could) sound like. That is sad ...
I bet there are posts here from me from maybe two decades ago when the Google motto was still "don't be evil" or some such, where I called them as evil. There was a zero probability that it would go any other way for anyone who was paying attention and had two functioning brain cells.
No amount of fines can hurt them in reality. Laws are for everyone else.
How equestrian of you. And you may have inadevrtantly discovered why the 4-speed became ubiquitous. The model T was just 2-speed of course, and we had "3 on the tree" for a bit but "4 on the floor" was for generations the goto, not unlike the past.
(It's time for Paris, because y'all have forgotten about her too)
As a child, Coke (tm) cam in 6 1/4 Oz. bottles IIRC. Again, if memory serves, because I am quite some considerable distance from my bookshelf, the Coca Cola company had determined empirically that this was the optimum size for "thirst quenching".
It could be that I just imagined this, or not ...
Broadly speaking, you are correct, but the devil is in the details and complexity of the movement. A top line movement with multiple complications is a wonder to behold. However, while a movement is a movement as you noted, new materials and constructions are still being developed and patented today.
I accidentally upgraded my kid's iWatch 3. Bad move because his iPhone 6 will no longer pair with it. I get it, newer, better, shinier and so on. But I am trying to instil in him the idea that one should use durable goods until they no longer are fit for purpose. Apple's planned obsolescence in this case is irritating.
Looks on the shelf.
N9. That still works for 3G+ telephony and they won't have that
Xperia X running SFOS. Dump the Android 4.4.x emulation and that'll be safe as well.
Some old 2G phones around, but not sure if 2G even exists in China
Any iPhone4 or 3GS will have a version of iOS so old that their fruity app will probably bork - must have one here somewhere?
My ATM (random asian bank) wanted me to login as Administrator, but no matter how often I pressed the screen, I wasn't allowed to do so - damn! I was allowed to withdraw money, though I was unable to read the screen for the message encouraging said Administrative login.
Eh-hmmm.
" But because Chrome so dominates the browser market, its unilateral innovations tend to become obligations for competitors, particularly if web developers embrace them."
The 90s called ...
" But because Internet Explorer so dominates the browser market, its unilateral innovations tend to become obligations for competitors, particularly if web developers embrace them."
OK. Went the "full Monty" and saw it in iMax 3D. Rather awesome.
A great "Max Headroom" reference, and what was more astounding to me was the whole "Forbydelsens Element" thing going. If you haven't seen this film, then it's worth a look - a very dark, wet and dystopian future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Element_of_Crime
From the outset of Win8 (which was a much improved base OS) I have claimed that were Microsoft to see the error of their ways and give Win8 (now Win10) and Windows7 interface, all would be forgiven.
I still claim that.
And now that Windows Phone is very certainly dead, the whole underlying premise of the tiles interface (which was sort of OK on a phone actually, different, but OK) now disappears. If there is no need to have a Consistent interface across devices, then there is no logical impediment to going back to an interface people actually liked (Windows7).
Of course, we'd still have all the data slurrping and crapola that they've invented, but they could ditch that if they wished. Do they even make anything out of all that crap they apparently slurp?
I haven't been here for a while ... retirement does that.
Anyway, where are all the Microsoft shills from back then. You remember them, the ones who always had a statistic or an anecdote or some strategy play that was a guarantee that Windows Phone would absorb the world?
"What a shambles. But then, what do you expect from the current administration?"
Wearing your bias in public I see.
Given that the current "theatre" is a complete shambles (according to the commentarderie) and mostly bollocks, and it was all implemented by previous US Administrations, it is "Unfair, deeply unfair" to blame the current administration.
Find something DT and his team did do that was bad, and hammer them for that - don't just knee-jerk blame the current administration because you don't like The Donald. I didn't like Obama, but I don't blame him for the Iraq war!
The reason, is that a lot of belts that are of medium width, have a zipper pocket in them (I have one myself and keep a C note in it. It is completely feasible to secret a small weapon i there as well. I am reliably informed, that contraband is confiscated very, very regularly from this source.
So tere you have it.
Expect travel insurance premiums to rise.
The primary reason I carry my laptop on flights (and I fly a lot, both left and right on entry), is that my laptop is worth considerably more than all my other baggage combined. Having it in hand is simply the prudent thing to do.
Luggage gets lost. Theft occurs from luggage. These facts dictate my actions.
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