Posts by WhoaWhoa 178 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Sep 2013
"This is exactly why Apple are in no rush. They will sit and wait to see what people are doing and then take all the best bits and blend them into a slick, seamless package which everyone will fawn over."
... which a vocal minority will fawn over, and others will chuckle over.
(cf. other iThings).
"once the engineers have let go of it and the designers can mould it into something that people would like to wear"
Hm.
My immediate reaction was that engineers do stuff and then designers get out their box of coloured pencils, use them a bit, then try to take the credit for being "creative("s")".
But I recognise that simplifications are just that. Reality is more complex.
File transfer progress bars are, in most cases, trying to express the ratio of the known amount of data transferred divided by the unknown amount of data (*) still to be transferred.
As such, they are not even a reliable guess, just a form of feedback to reassure the watcher of never-boiling pots that something is still happening.
The mistake isn't that the bars aren't doing their job; more in understanding what that job is.
(Of course, a sudden jump from 0% to large % probably isn't the best choice of how to give the feedback. Something along the lines of a decaying exponential terminating in Done would be a more intuitive choice).
(*) To repeat, in *most* cases.
"As far as human trust goes, while most of us barely trust our own governments, but I'm sure I'd speak for most when I say we sure as hell won't trust governments of foreign nations."
Upvoted you.
But, I don't confine my mistrust to foreign governments any more.
I've been pushed increasingly towards the observation that, regardless of political or nationalistic flavour, most politicians, leaders, etc., have much more in common with each other than they do with the citizens they purportedly 'lead' (*) or 'serve' (*). Some might be self-serving from the start, others might start with good intent, but by the time they're on the 'ascendency' (*) most think themselves into believing that serving their own career ends above everything else is moral, ethical, desirable, best for everyone. And that any citizen who thinks otherwise is at best misguided and at worst a dangerous enemy of the state.
That's why my trust evaporated along with the faux differences between regime, party, etc.
(*) These words apostrophised to distance myself from politicians' understanding of them.
"Smalltalk was/is heavily influenced by Lisp."
Really?
How?
Intent understood and now quite sure you're not on top of the two types of language.
(I'd previously thought you might have omitted an "or, alternatively" before your parenthesised "preferably Smalltalk").
P.S.
"I would bet a wooden nickle"
You probably meant that you /wouldn't/ bet a wooden nickel, otherwise you'd be saying that you don't place much value on the opinion you expressed.
(cf. "I give a damn" when the intent is "I don't give a damn").
Gotta get to grips with using negations correctly if you want to advise people about programming...
'... it'll be a Lisp/Scheme-based language (preferably Smalltalk), instead of BASIC. But I wouldn't hold my breath ... I would bet a wooden nickle that 90+% of all that's wrong with TehIntraWebTubes can be placed on kids being inflicted with BASIC as their "first programming language".'
And some of the other 10% inflicted by people who think that object-oriented Smalltalk is, in any way, a Lisp / Scheme based functional programming language?
Or have I misunderstood your intent?
"Snowden, like a number people on this forum, seems to think that sanctimonious bourgeois platitudes and verities are acceptable substitutes for political, historical, and societal insight."
Verity:
Noun
A true principle or belief, esp. one of fundamental importance.
I go along with a true principle or belief, esp. one of fundamental importance, being more important than "political insight".
As for "historical, and societal insight", I take it yours doesn't include such matters as the abolition of slavery, not sending children up chimneys, votes for women, etc., since reforms such as these arose from verities taking precedence.
(No comment on "sanctimonious bourgeois platitudes", as the words in that context constitute little more than a sanctimonious, bourgeois platitude).
"nuke the US economy by defaulting on the national debt"
The national debt and the ever-increasingness of it has already nuked the US economy.
Raising the "debt ceiling" and "not defaulting" is, metaphorically speaking, shutting eyes, putting fingers in ears and singing La-La-La while stacking more and more kegs of powder around the bonfire.
One day, probably in most of our lifetimes, there will be one almighty bang.
"Whilst in the UK or US you can work your way up"
Or else you can post nearly 7,000 messages to The Register over six and a half years.
And such prolix content. Whew!
Even assuming you don't post anywhere else you're really not leaving yourself much time to work your way up, or even to stay in employment, if you are.
"Re: WhoaWhoa Re: @Matt Bryant
Hey, winners have jet bombers."
I think you'll find that the "winner's" credit card companies, i.e. other countries, actually own the jet bombers. The "winners" are actually the losers who imagine that they can keep getting further and further into debt at faster and faster rates and it will all end happily for them.
Do you know what? It won't.
"reckless socialist spending"
Guessing that's from one of the US capitalist bent... the ones who know how to borrow and spend at mega-scales on military to fight the rest of the world and bonuses for the borrowers.
And if that guess is correct, and the post is thinly disguised economic 'advice', the appropriate response to such advice, with thanks to Mr. McEnroe, is:
You can't be serious!
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!
Apple software crashes the same as any substantial software does (*). It's just years of Apple adverts that claimed otherwise and years of technically challenged purchasers who believed it.
(*) My personal experience is that IOS based software (especially Safari) crashes noticeably more than Windows and Linux based stuff. 15-20 years ago MS based stuff was pretty poor, but Apple have used the time to overtake them.
Americanism this. Americanism that.
It's just a matter of thinking through what the phrase means ('could care less').
Those for whom it's an unmanageable task are still allowed to post gnarled meaning here, but people know to smile and say, 'Yes, dear. We know what you're trying to say'.
"You are kidding or deluded. Android is based on Java on top of Linux. Both are pretty much top of the pops for security vulenrabilities in their respective fields...."
The part of your argument that won me over was the well-sourced examples and references to comprehensive studies.
"The only thing that Apple seem to be 'very tight on' is preventing people from producing apps that do things they don't want them to, such as provide a cheaper/better version of some functionality they want to sell to you themselves."
On a point of information, they're pretty good at silence about their bugs and hardware problems, too. In fact, veritable Man Booker nominees, I should think.
"wasn't it Gove who said IT should teach development skills instead of using MS Office? he took the advice of Google and others."
I'm not sure that Google boss slating UK's 'computing' in schools when speaking in Scotland a month or so before Gove knee-jerked in embarrassment amounts to Gove "taking advice".
And what credentials, exactly, does Gove have to say anything about IT (did he really drop the 'C'?) anyway?
What credentials to say anything about education, come to that?
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