Posts by 45RPM

Smartphones' security enhancements just make them more dangerous

Since your fingerprint (or face, or (presumably) DNA) is stored as a salted hash in the Secure Enclave of the phone, unreadable and unsynchronised with the cloud, I’m not hugely worried that this represents a security loophole. It might be a security hole, of course, but it’s insignificantly small compared with the massive security error that social networks represent.

Through tools like Facebook, criminals can fairly easily work out your mothers maiden name, your place of birth, your real birthday (assuming that you haven’t been foolish enough to explicitly tell them), and may even in some cases divulge what you’re spending your money on, when and how much.

With that little haul a malfeasant should be able to unlock your life without going to the inconvenience of nabbing your phone first. I think that putative problems with (correctly implemented) facial and fingerprint recognition are only worth worrying about once the far bigger security issues that millions face everyday have been resolved.

UK security chief: How 'bout a tax for tech firms that are 'uncooperative' on terror content?

Re: "Because content is not taken down..

That's not actually true now, is it? Imagine a right wing muppet. You know the sort. Objects to immigration, believes global warming is a hoax, hero worships Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, uses terms like Feminazi and imagines himself terribly witty. Have you pictured the oaf? Excellent.

Well, said oaf is browsing the internet, visiting all the sort of websites that oafs like him like to visit - dubious subreddits, DonaldJTrump.com, Conservapedia, the Daily Mail, Fox News - and confirmation bias will ensure that he laps up all the bullshit and propaganda. Given that saner minds are unlikely to be browsing these sources, it's highly unlikely that his oafish peabrain will be troubled by an opposing opinion. Even if they did, and supposing they bothered to comment, the old perception filters would snap down to prevent his meagre intellectual faculties from being troubled by something so disturbing as a thought.

Of course, this applies equally to all the other oafs that you might find on the web. Would be terrorists, for example, and so forth.

So no. Deradicalisation is far harder, more involved, and costly that radicalisation in the first place. How to deal with it? Unfortunately, I suspect that censorship might have a place (in addition to costly deradicalisation schemes). Because, whilst freedom of speech is a wonderful thing, some thoughts (evidence based scientific research for example) really do have more value than others (racism, sexism etc)

Kernel-memory-leaking Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

Re: Can you hear it?

**Intel Marketing Memo - Strictly Confidential**

OPERATION SNAILPACE

You’ll have read in the press about this new ‘bug’ which cripples the performance of our CPUs - this applies, of course, only to older models for which we are no longer making any money. Unfortunately, customers had begun to notice that our latest chips are not significantly faster than our older models. With this exceedingly cunning plan we are now able to market our new silicon as 50% faster than the old stuff (after adding on the standard 20% hyperbole)

This isn’t a one off either - from now on each tock will come with a crippling bug that destroys performance of older CPUs and each tick will fix the problem.

But remember - this is top secret so don’t let the press find out.

Apple gets around to patching all the other High Sierra security holes

I think that it might be happening again now on iOS. I haven't checked.

All of which is great. But High Sierra still seems to think that there are 13 months in the year (I suspect an indexing problem - someone forgot that arrays are zero indexed and referred to month 12)

Take a look in the Console if you don’t believe me. It’s full to the brim with out of bounds errors this month.

This might seem like a trivial flaw - but it’s trivial flaws like this, and especially those which are easy to find, which often form the basis of a serious exploit.

Digital Entrepreneur Awards help UK tech cop an eyeful of... WTF?

@iron - the 1960s called. They want you back.

Frankly, I take exception to your dullard use of the, frankly abhorrent, ‘word’ Feminazi. If you mean Feminist, then perhaps you should think of it as meaning “Functional, moral, human being”. It’s not just for women you know - it’s about recognising that there are no fundamental differences between the sexes when it comes to intelligence, ability, or how they should be treated / paid / respected.

I’m sorry if that came out as being a bit frothingly incoherent on my part, but I’d like to kick users of the term “Feminazi” until my right leg was worn down to a bloody stump and then attempt to repeat the punishment with my left leg.

Idiot.

Apple: Sure, we banned VPN iOS apps in China, but, um, er, art!

@ecofeco

In the dim and distant past, back in the days of the Raj, the tendrils of the British Empire were able to claim India because the Maharajahs practically invited the Brits in. The Maharajahs got to keep their palaces, and the British would help administer the place and exploit the poor on their behalf (skimming off a fat profit, and keeping anything that they particularly liked like the kohinoor, dontchaknow). The consequences of inviting a greedy and rapacious regime in to 'help run' your country weren't fully considered - at least, not until the bullets started flying, and perhaps not even then.

I mention this only because, in recent years, Western businesses and governments have been busily handing over their crown jewels to those helpful chaps in China, who only want to assist us with those tedious tasks that we can't be bothered with. Little things like running infrastructure and manufacturing. They'll do it so much cheaper than we can. Until we discover that we've dismantled all our management and manufacturing capacity - and oh shit! The price just went up.

Apple isn't the only business showing such a lack of foresight. Name any Western business or country you like - we're all in the same boat. It's quite a leaky boat, of course, but don't worry - China can fix that for us…

Incidentally, I don't blame China for behaving in this way. I'm British. We built an empire in just this manner - and it'd be most hypocritical of me to object to the taste of our own medicine.

Re: A non story

@AC

There are plenty of iPhone lookalikes in China already, although to my eyes one phone looks much the same as another. Rounded rectangular shape? Check! Big screen? Check! Available in a selection of discrete or gaudy colours? Check! I don't think I can work up much excitement for the form, I certainly wouldn't claim that one is more ground-breaking or revolutionary than another.

The secret sauce is in the OS. That's where competition and choice is required. If Google has the field to itself in China, as it most certainly would if Apple pulled out, then (in my view) that would be a bad thing for the consumer. And a cloned iPhone wouldn't be running iOS - it might look iOSish, but it'd be just a skin on Android.

Re: A non story

@james 68

Incidentally, a wise man (benefit of the doubt, anyway - it was certainly a sensible thought) once wrote "Being stuck in a room with people who have diverse tastes makes for much more interesting conversation than the conversational circle-jerk when everyone likes the same thing."

I'd like to add an addendum that, for such a conversation to work, both parties have to listen. Or, at least, read what was previously written.

Re: A non story

@James 68

You didn't actually read what I wrote, did you? You just jumped right in with your own prejudices and assumptions. No. The 'nice, easy, way of evading the restriction' is to install from source - not from the app store. I use OpenVPN - you can download it here (https://github.com/AnhTVc/OpenVPN-IOS) and then build and install it on your iOS device without having to trouble yourself with the AppStore - or any official restrictions - at all.

Re: A non story

@tiggity

But, as I point out, if they walk away then everyone loses. Including the Chinese people. And the only ‘win’ is that they get to be smug about it. Don’t you think that they’re smug enough already? I think that there’s more than enough smug in the world!

Surely it’s better to comply - and provide a nice, easy, way of evading the restriction? They’ve done that - and, at least in my opinion, this is a better solution to the problem than more wanton smuggery.

A non story

If Apple were to stop selling in China (well it’s that or remove VPN (and other apps) from the store) then the only people who’d be hurt are the Chinese. Better to submit to the will of the government so that iDevices can still be sold in China - otherwise the only option for the Chinese will be Android devices which are locked down to the dictatorship approved specifications and which are worse from a privacy point of view.

Besides, Apple has given to the Chinese government with one hand (complying with this directive) and taken a whole lot more with the other (making it easier than ever to, in effect, sideload from a compiler). Download VPN source from the internet, build, and install your home built app on your device. No need for the store - so who cares what’s allowed there or not? Easy.

Whichever side of the Android / iOS debate you’re on (and perhaps, like me, you’d prefer the debate to go away and for people just to buy the device that suits them best without getting religious about it), surely we can all agree that choice is a good thing and it drives the market forward. There are only two dogs in the Phone OS fight - and taking one of them away isn’t going to help anyone. We need more dogs - not less.

Wait, did Oracle tip off world to Google's creepy always-on location tracking in Android?

Re: The Quartz report

@AC

I’m not necessarily calling bullshit - but that’s a mighty big claim and one for which you’re going to have to provide some evidence. From everything I’ve seen on iOS, if Location Tracking is off then it’s truly Off. But if you know differently I’d be very interested to learn more. Cite away…

I think that Messages always meant Ads in the US. Hence “And now for some messages from our sponsors”.

iPhone X: Bargain! You've just bagged yourself a cheap AR device

Re: Fools and their money...

@lotaresco

Have an upvote. It has never occurred to me to apply Aesops Fables to computing. I must dig out my copy tonight. Excellent work sir!

Re: Fools and their money...

@inmypjs

Whether or not you are a fool, that is a very foolish statement - and one that betrays you as a member of, at the very least, the cult of “anything but Apple”. It is foolish for two reasons:

1.) Because if you had a genuine interest in the whole glorious spectrum of digital information technology and computing you wouldn’t need anyone to tell you what represents good value. You’d read about it, and go out and play with it.

2.) Your use-case differs from mine and therefore what you consider to be “good value” is likely to differ, perhaps markedly, from what someone else considers to be good value.

For my use-case the iPhone SE represents excellent value for money, as does the base model iPad. Equally, much as I like macOS, the Mac doesn’t make a compelling case for itself right now - certainly not one good enough for me to consider replacing my seven year old computer.

Re: Fools and their money...

“Fools and their money” - it seems to me that the biggest fools are those who religiously say “I’ll never buy a… (Microsoft / Google / Apple / Amazon - insert product of choice here)” rather than considering the merits of the product itself and whether it fills a need at a particular time. Similarly, a fool might fixate on the size of the price ticket without considering whether it represents good value for money. There’s no doubt that £1k is an awfully large sum - but that doesn’t necessarily mean that a product so priced is bad value.

A famous motoring journalist once waxed lyrical about the qualities of a motor car made by brand X (no, I’m not saying which one - if you read the article too then you’ll know who), describing it as better built, more comfortable and more refined than a Rolls Royce. He then fixated on the price and said that he wasn’t prepared to spend 80K on a car made by brand X. If his review was accurate (and I haven’t tried the product in question because I don’t have 80k) then he’s a fool because, by any measure, an 80k car which outperforms a Roller is staggeringly good value. He’s fixated on the badge and not on the product.

Of course, not buying the product because you don’t have the necessary funds (80k, 1k - or even a tenner) is another matter entirely. But that has nothing to do with the badge.

Apple succeeds in failing wearables

Re: "You have to tap or flick your wrist."

If they only included Seiko’s Kinetic technology the short battery life would cease to be a problem. Overcharging would be the issue.

User asked help desk to debug a Post-it Note that survived a reboot

Yeah. I did that.

I used to be in the habit of using virtual sticky notes to remind me what changes I needed make / what functionality had been asked for. Eventually, of course, I’d have so many notes that they’d begin to get in the way of the development environment that I was using - so I’d overflow onto the bezel of the monitor using the real sticky deal.

One morning (the very wee small hours) whilst pulling an all nighter and successfully closing my sticky notes as I completed my actions I came across one which wouldn’t close. Damn thing was stuck. And worse yet, I couldn’t get my mouse pointer over to its top left corner in order to close it.

I don’t think that I need to say any more. You’ve already worked out the problem, and that I am a massive eejit.

Openreach boss says he'd take a burning effigy on the chin

@AC £99 - bloody hell! Really? We have FTTP for about £40 / month, cancel whenever we like after the first year. We had to pay £150 for connection - but that first year is long gone now, and we’re sticking with the service. It’s too good to ignore.

The only thing that BT understands is competition. Until they have solid competition then Templeton, and communities like it, will get little to no love from Buzby and Co. We were in a similar situation. Risible broadband performance, with frequent timeout disconnects, until a competitor came to our sleepy village with promises of a minimum of 100Mbps synchronous broadband. Many of us signed up - and guess what happened? BT suddenly discovered that they could provide half decent performance to our area after all! 100Mbps to our village from BT, who’dathoughtit?

I say half decent because its only asynchronous - a distinction that won’t matter a jot to most people. Perhaps I should have said quarter decent though because, as far as I’m concerned, they’ve burned their bridges.

Pixel-style display woes on your shiny new X? Perfectly normal, says Apple

Re: "warming-up time of valve TVs was an improvement"

Let alone the dot, I miss the squiggle.

Re: 'most modern cars will struggle to reach'

@404 Nevertheless, I’m prepared to bet good money that, in ten years time, what remains of your car will be a 4’x4’x4’ cube. 228 thousand miles is half way there and, sad to say, I don’t think it’ll be the (repairable) oily bits that let you down. It’ll be all the electronics for the ECU, gearbox, cruise control, safety systems, navigation and so forth. I sincerely hope that I’m wrong - it’s good to read that there are still people who look after their stuff carefully but (shakes head in despair)

We live in a disposable world now.

Re: 'image persistence' or 'burn-in'

My car has a choke. And a foot operating main beam switch. It doesn’t have fog lights, hazard lights or an intermittent wash wipe. But, on the other hand, it has got half a million miles on the clock - a number that, I suspect, most modern cars will struggle to reach before succumbing to terminal bit-rot. Not all old technology is bad. Some of it is very good indeed.

OLED FTW?

For years we’ve heard about the benefits of OLED and why, thanks to this wonder-tech, we should all be buying Samsung or LG phones. Now, as soon as Apple starts to use it, it turns out that we all misunderstood and that the technology is, in fact, complete crap - akin to an old TV tube.

So which is it? Is OLED crap? Should we all be sticking to good old LCD? And what are the benefits of this apparently ill-conceived technology supposed to be anyway?

Official: Perl the most hated programming language, say devs

Re: APL - without a shadow of doubt.

@Bronek

I realise that your question wasn't directed at me but, when I was programming in APL (SAX APL - with the SAX APL font), I carefully drew all of the APL symbols onto my keyboard with a CD marker - being sure to mark the front of the keys so that prodding with my fingers wouldn't wear my scribblings away. Eventually, of course, I didn't need to look at the markings - any more than I look at the keys when I'm typing this.

Not a trick you could do today with the fashion for low profile chiclet keys!

Re: Sad really...

@hellwig

Python is a superb teaching language - a modern day BASIC. It’s fantastic for teaching kids how to code but…

…and this is the lightning in the bottle compared with other teaching languages…

…it’s great for real work too.

For short scripts and processing text I’d still use Perl for preference, but Python has Perl soundly thrashed when it comes to more substantial projects. In my view, anyway.

APL - without a shadow of doubt.

As with most programming languages, Perl has its uses. Personally, I think that it’s best used for short test processing scripts - a sort of user-friendly sed if you will. I had to maintain a application of tens of thousands of lines of Perl once - that was not a pleasant experience, and I wasn’t allowed to rewrite it in something like C. I had ample justification too, besides not liking Perl for large projects. The code was written by an imbecile who left ‘strict’ out because it made his code crash. It was unreliable and crashy, and still I wasn’t allowed to do the job properly.

The worst language I ever had to use was APL. I have a knack for picking up languages quickly, which meant that I’d often have to pitch in on eclectically coded projects. APL tested my abilities and patience and - although I got to be reasonably adept at it - I never want to touch it again. A vile waste of time, and not even as efficient and fast as its adherents claim. Every challenge that APL's fans have thrown at me to prove its mathematical prowess I have been able to beat on identical hardware just by using a sensible language. Like C. :-D

Scroll, scroll, scroll your note gently down the screen. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, FB's code's a dream

Re: end of all days

Whilst I don’t particularly care for social media, I don’t necessarily have a problem with it per se. I don’t use it so, generally speaking, it doesn’t affect me. However, when a powerful company like Facebook shirks its responsibilities to ensure that it doesn’t disseminate lies and prejudiced propaganda (racism, sexism &c &c) and in doing so furthers the cause of petulant man-children like Trump and Farage, then yes - I have a problem with them. At that point they affect all of us, whether we signed up for the service or not. And the fact that they gobble up personal data faster than a Stazi agent on a binge doesn’t help their cause either. Do you trust them?

Should Facebook have to police its service? Perhaps, in an ideal world, they shouldn’t. In an ideal world we wouldn’t need antivirus software either. But given that many (possibly most?) people, not just users of Social Networks, have trouble parsing even simple stories and sorting out fact from fiction, I’d say that Facebook has an absolute duty to police, and even censor, its service most thoroughly. If a story fails the snopes test, and garners significant clicks, then that story should be deleted - it has ceased to be harmless. On the other hand, if a story is in the public interest and passes the snopes test, then it should be promoted and spread - no matter how distasteful it might be.

Similarly, I have a problem with Reddit and Twitter - but, since they aren’t the subject of the story, they’re out of the firing line of my ire. Actually, if the story hadn’t had such an excellent headline, and it is a truly funny headline (to me, anyway), I’d have skipped merrily by without a second glance.

Screw Facebook and the horse they rode in on. They’re a nasty, toxic, stain on the tech world. So I don’t really care about this. However…

…that headline is legendary, it made my day, and big fb thumb up to Thomas Claburn and to El Reg.

Apple Cook's half-baked defense of the Mac Mini: This kit ain't a leftover

If the new Mac Mini is any larger than the AppleTV then it’s not worthy of the moniker ‘Mini’ any more. If it is that small then I’m interested in buying one!

Re: Too late

What are you doing that required a new computer? I, too, am looking forward to new Macs - but the old Mac Pro can still be a comparably quick computer (when compared with recent computers, I mean). I upgraded the RAM on mine (to 64GB), the GPU (to Radeon RX480), the CPU tray (dual 3.5GHz 6 core) and the storage PCIe SSD from OWC.

Of course, the very very latest CPUs have more cores - and therefore higher multithreaded performance - but right now there seems to be a sweet spot around eight cores where adding more doesn’t give you a whole lot extra. Single thread performance has more or less stagnated for years. My PCIe bus or RAM isn’t the latest generation, but I can’t say that I’ve noticed the performance hit.

You might argue, of course, that the upgrades must have cost an arm and a leg. And yes, they probably did - but I didn’t have to spend the money all at once. The upgrades were carried out gradually, over the years, so I didn’t really feel the pain. And at the end of it all I have a computer running High Sierra and running High Sierra fast. Very fast. A computer that edits video, photographs, sound without raising a sweat. That compiles large projects quick as winking. That barely raises its CPU utilisation even under load - and, yes, that also makes a good storage heater (the only downside!)

The raison d’etre of the Mac Pro wasn’t particularly its performance. It was its upgradability (which is why Darth Dustbin is a bad Mac Pro). You said that you had a Mac Pro - but I can’t help wondering why when it appears that you just chucked it out and replaced it, rather than upgrading it and squeezing every last drop of life out of it. And if you weren’t going to upgrade then an iMac was probably perfect for you.

Japan finds long, deep tunnel on the Moon

Re: But what are they going to _do_ up there?

@Kaltern - who wouldn't want to stay in a Moon Hotel for a few nights?

Me. I'll watch on interestedly, but I'd rather stay on Earth. So please can we all try not to mess it up too much.

A long deep tunnel on the moon? Those would be the intestines, surely? Next they’ll be telling us about moons around uranus. Fnarr Farr.

GE goes with Apple: Not the Transformation you were looking for, Satya?

Re: And why should that surprise us?

@big_D

In fairness, in my experience, crashes on Macs (and Linux) tend to be caused by faulty memory (which is cold comfort on many modern Macs where the memory is permanently soldered to the main board). Losing work is harder though and for two main reasons - firstly, Time Machine, which works for all software of course but only if the user remembers to plug in their backup drive or connect to a network which has a Time Capsule of some kind on it.

Secondly, software which uses Apple’s APIs (NSDocument in particular), is very well protected against crashes. You can try it for yourself if you’re feeling brave and you have a desktop Mac to hand. Create a document in something like TextEdit, Pages or Numbers (to choose software that every Mac user will have) and bang out some text. Then yank the power. Don’t shut down. Just pull the power. Then turn the computer on - and, after a spot of grumbling, everything will open up again and your cursor will be flashing away at the point it was when you terminated your machine so ruthlessly. You might not have every last character - but it’ll be damned close.

Sadly that last trick doesn’t work in Microsoft Office, which is probably the most popular work suite on the Mac - particularly in a business environment, since Microsoft eschews Apple’s APIs in favour of its own.

Xperia XZ1: Sony spies with its MotionEye something beginning...

Re: Sony design....

There seem to be two schools of Sony design. Simple, understated and tasteful (like this) and big, brash and shouty. Sony design, at its best, can take on the very best that other companies have to offer and show them what’s what. Sony design, at its worst, is all childish lumps, knobs, and flashing lights - which rather lets the side down.

Thankfully, in recent years, we’ve seen more of the ‘good’ Sony and less of the bad. And I know that people seem to have a downer on Sony TVs - but I have two, one is twenty years old and the other is ten. They still work perfectly - so you can be sure that, when it comes to replacement time, I’ll be getting another.

Neglected Pure Connect speaker app silenced in iOS 11's war on 32-bit

Re: Fault

@John Savard

Given the amount of extra work that would be required to support all that code whose only purpose is to run legacy code (and probably not very often at that), and the security nightmare that such a system would present, I am very grateful that support for this old software is being dropped.

Besides, if you're one of the few who really needs an old program (I count myself amongst that number, by the way, since I'm not prepared to drop several hundred quid on a new copy of one of my most useful development tools), I recommend either using an emulator or keeping an old computer hanging around for that purpose.

@tiggity

I had one of those speakers. A Bose. It was the work of five minutes to upgrade it to Bluetooth and a modern dock connector. It still sounds great.

I take your point though - some people don’t have the ability to make the necessary changes.

Re: Sale of Goods Act

@Keith Oborn

And that is my principle objection to EVs. They’re no longer tools, the way cars used to be, they’re mere gadgets. Toys. Expensive gadgets, but gadgets none the less - and their lifespan is at the whim of the manufacturer. At some point the manufacturer will stop supplying software updates - and some unforeseen bug will render them all inoperable. When that happens, it’s buy a new car time.

Yesterday, as I was blasting down the road in my early 1960s GT car, I saw a Jensen Interceptor - about 10 years newer than my car, but still knocking on the door of 50 years old. A very creditable age. It happened to be following a Tesla Model X. The Jensen looked amazing - a really droolworthy car, and I’d have been envious of it were it not for the fact that my car had rolled out of the same factory and matches it in the glamour stakes. The Tesla? Well, it’s not for me. It’s a toy. A frippery by comparison. It isn’t serious - and I doubt that any Model Xs will still be on the road in 50 years time. The Jensens on the other hand? Government will have to legislate them off the road - because they’re not going to stop running for any other reason.

Re: they just need to...

@Lysenko It isn’t restricted like that - it’s still C, and can do everything that C can do, hence the name. But it depends on the source - have you allocated (and freed, natch) your memory manually? Are you hardcoding where you point on the basis of an assumption of 32bit size? Or have you been canny in writing your code (sizeof) or, better yet, used the Objective parts of Objective C to do it for you.

Flexibility is the watchword. In fact, I imagine that many ObjC developers don’t mess with pointers explicitly, and use ARC for memory management - these developers will have no issues at all. I use a mix of techniques, and use ARC where appropriate but not everywhere, and I haven’t seen any problems either.

Of course, it isn’t necessary to use ObjC to develop for iOS. Other languages, other APIs, other IDEs are available. I haven’t used them - but I imagine that updating to 64 bit in these cases might be more problematic.

Re: they just need to...

@Lysenko

Certainly I’ve seen those issues in other development environments (it was particularly tiresome on VMS!), but I’ve yet to see an issue when using Apple’s APIs on Xcode. It really is as simple as changing a compiler flag on every project that I’ve updated to 64 bit so far (other than my own applications, this also includes the following supposedly 32 bit open source projects - Marathon, DOSBox, CrocoDS, ActiveGS…)

In my experience, Xcode really is a most remarkable IDE.

Re: they just need to...

@AC

Excellent point. Thumbs up. But remember that we’re not talking about code changes - so extensive testing may not be required. Add half a day, depending on the complexity of the app.

Re: Apple fragmentation

Yawn. I suppose I should feed the obvious troll. But the thing is that Android is an excellent OS. Sure, it has its faults, but doesn’t everything?

iOS is an excellent OS too. It has different faults. But upgrading to 64 bit only is not one of them. Apple isn’t to blame, at least not in this instance, if developers dump a load of shit onto their customers and run for the hills failing to support the poor bloody user.

What you like isn’t necessarily what everyone else likes - which is fortunate, otherwise there’d be no competition, we’d all use the same devices and the same software, and the world would be a boring place.

Re: they just need to...

@Byz

Wow. Is that how you bill your clients? ;-)

I’ve always found 10 or 20 minutes to be sufficient - and that includes the time to boot, change compiler settings, build, commit to repository, upload to Apple and shut down the computer again. But mums that word - best not to let on to the clients how easy the conversion process to 64 bit actually is.

Re: Evidently never heard of escrow...

@Version 1.0

It depends. If you’re using Apple’s developer tools then the process for converting to 64 bit is pretty simple. You might have to update your code to replace any deprecated functions with supported ones, but I haven’t seen any situations where this is necessary (yet). So then it’s just a matter of telling the compiler to build a 64 bit version and job done. Simple as that.

You can even try it yourself. DOSBox and Marathon for iOS are 32 bit apps - but open source. Grab a copy of the source code, change the build settings, and you’ll be running these great apps on your 64 bit only iOS device in no time.

There really is no excuse for developers not to update their software. I’m pretty pissed off that I can’t run Civilization anymore - but I don’t hold Apple to blame for this. It’s not as if they capriciously dropped 32 bit support without warning everyone long in advance what was going to happen.

Twitter: Why we silenced Rose McGowan after she slammed alleged sex pest Harvey Weinstein

Re: I think Linehan has it right

@Anonymous Coward and Others

Scott Adams is quite smart. Just not the cartoonist Scott Adams who is not only a dick, but a dick who can’t draw very well - which is something of a handicap in a cartoonist.

The real Scott Adams, the guy who wrote adventure games in the late 1970s and 1980s, is quite smart though - although if he comes out in support of Trump I’ll revise my opinion pretty damn quickly (and call into question the intelligence of anyone named Scott Adams, regardless of the facts).

Lenovo spits out retro ThinkPads for iconic laptop's 25th birthday

@CrazyOldCatMan

I wasn’t. Actually, I found my old OS/2 2 install CD last month - but not the boot floppy disks which are also a prerequisite for install. Besides, if I recall correctly, you can’t install OS/2 2 on a system with more that a certain amount of memory (8MB?) or speed (33MHz?) - although it’ll run correctly once installed. Something like that anyway. I can’t remember the specifics.

I used to run it on my 25MHz Opus 386 PC. Happy days.

Would you like a side order of OS/2 to go with that?

Computers4Christians miraculously appears on Ubuntu wiki

Of special interest to the clergy will be the hidden search engine for pictures of choirboys. There’s a real surplice of images there.

Oh, I’m soo damned for that joke.