After several weeks of experimentatin, I successfully replicated the appley keyboard experience by spilling a glass of wine over my keyboard, flusing it out briefly with a splash of isopropyl alcohol, spraying it with wd40 electrical contact clearner and then leaving the rsultant mess to dry. Th replicatin is neary perfect, thoug somewhat frustratinnnnn to us.
Posts by Graham Dawson
2678 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Mar 2007
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That magical super material Apple hopes will hit backspace on its keyboard woes? Nylon
Let's make laptops from radium. How's that for planned obsolescence?
AI can now animate the Mona Lisa's face or any other portrait you give it. We're not sure we're happy with this reality
If you hear podcasting star Joe Rogan say something dumb, it may not be his fault – an AI has cloned his voice
Let's check in with our friends in England and, oh good, bloke fined after hiding face from police mug-recog cam
Great disturbance in the Force as Star Wars' 'big walking carpet' is laid to rest
Friday 3rd May 2019 11:07 GMT 
Re: RIP Peter
Fun fact: He had spoken lines that were dubbed over afterwards. Peter's voice coming out of Chewie's face always gives me a laugh.
Self-taught Belgian bloke cracks crypto conundrum that was supposed to be uncrackable until 2034
What are we more likely to see? A smooth Windows 10 May release... or a xenon-124 decay? Oh dear, bad news, IT folks
Internet industry freaks out over proposed unlimited price hikes on .org domain names
Behold, the insides of Samsung's Galaxy Fold: The phone that tears down all on its own
It was that gosh-darn anomaly again, says SpaceX as smoke billows from Crew Dragon test site
Aussies, Yanks may think they're big drinkers – but Brits easily booze them under the table
Easter is approaching – and British pr0n watchers still don't know how long before age-gates come into force
Starz, meet the Streisand Effect. Cable telly giant apologizes for demented DMCA Twitter takedown spree
User secures floppies to a filing cabinet with a magnet, but at least they backed up daily... right?
Friday 12th April 2019 08:35 GMT
Re: Well if the US ships want the Chinese to keep out of the way
Given the implied time period, women, generally being secretaries, were more likely to interact with computers in uninformed ways than men because men in office professions (as opposed to IT-specific professions) were less likely to interact with technology in general.
As an inverse that kind of proves the trend:
My mother likes to tell a story, from when she was a journalist for the Express in the late 70s, of the day the Daily Star was launched. She was just senior enough to be at the launch event, which was going to start with a video presentation. All of the execs were crowded around an expensive new video player, trying to work out how to get it to play the presentation tape. They hadn't a clue how to do it, as they hadn't interacted with anything more compolicated than a file-o-fax and left all the hard work up to their secretaries. So mum, as she tells it, waited for them to leave, wandered up to the machine, poked it a few times and got it playing.
The guys were naturally condescending in their praise of her success with the infernal machine, so she made sure to hide a few bottles of champagne to take home later as a suitable retribution.
And so my mother is part of the reason the Daily Star had a successful launch. I'm still not sure how to feel about this.
Overzealous n00b takes out point-of-sale terminals across the UK on a Saturday afternoon
All's fair in love and war when tech treats you like an infant
Oracle asks Supremes to snub Google's Java API copyright protest – and have a nice cuppa tea, instead
Netflix wants to choose its own adventure where Bandersnatch trademark case magically vanishes
Brekkie TV host Lorraine Kelly wins IR35 ruling against HMRC, adds fuel to freelance techies' ire over tax reforms
Friday 22nd March 2019 10:23 GMT
Avoidance isn't evasion, AC. I avoid paying all sorts of taxes. Corporation tax, for instance. I avoid that by not being a corporation.
More realistically I avoid paying the stupidly high emergency tax rate because I sorted my tax code. I avoid paying higher rates of income tax because my income, after deductions, doesn't fall into the higher bracket. All of this is avoidance, but not evasion. Evasion would be if I didn't pay the income tax I actually owe.
Mayors having a right 'mare in Florida: Acting mayor arrested weeks after boss also arrested
Freelance devs: Oh, you wanted the app to be secure? The job spec didn't mention that
That marketing email database that exposed 809 million contact records? Maybe make that two-BILLION-plus?
Hipster whines at tech mag for using his pic to imply hipsters look the same, discovers pic was of an entirely different hipster
US Supremes urged by pretty much everyone in software dev to probe Oracle's 'disastrous' Java API copyright win
Wednesday 27th February 2019 22:51 GMT
Re: @Graham Before people get in to a panic...
The fact that the courts have been treating it as a fair use issue is the entire problem. Headers and API descriptors should not be subject to copyright. Oracle managed to get copyright extended to cover things that it shouldn't cover, and the amicus briefs urging the supreme court to consider this appeal are making clear that the entire argument - the claim that a list of function names is subject to copyright - is wrong on its face.
The initial ruling in Google's favour made clear that a list of function names in a header file is not subject to copyright, because it is merely an index of what functions exist within an API, like a telephone book or index cards in a library. Copyright does not apply to lists unless there is some creativity in how they are organised (and even then there are tests), and it is safe to say that a list of function names in a header file, organised either at random or alphabetically, does not qualify.
Oracle's appeal managed to overturn that sensible ruling and place a new, senseless one in its place, one that has consequences far beyond android and java, or even the software industry as a whole.
As I said, whether or not it is fair use is a red herring. The argument being made by the amicus briefs is that fair use should not need to be considered because copyright doesn't apply to lists.
Tuesday 26th February 2019 23:22 GMT
Re: Before people get in to a panic...
The issue is not whether or not it is fair use, but whether copyright should extend to what is essentially a list of names. It was the case previously that an API was treated like a directory listing or a phone book, neither of which are subject to copyright under either us law or Berne. The court, failing to understand what an API is, extended copyright protection to that list, which is clearly well beyond the scope of copyright. Fair use is a red herring.
In hilariously petulant move, Apple shuts Texas stores and reopens them few miles down the road – for patent reasons
Wednesday 27th February 2019 22:31 GMT
Re: Perhaps an empty gesture
The "technology" in the patents in question appears to be related to DNS lookups, secure network communications (they all describe SSL or HTTPS in a round-about way), and network traffic shaping, none of which could be described as in any way novel. The only reason Apple lost this case was because of the venue, not the merits or otherwise of the patents (which are in the process of being invalidated, or have already been so, if what I'm reading is correct).
It all hinges on this: Huawei goes after Samsung with its own foldable hybrid Mate X
Not so smart after all: A techie's tale of toilet noise horror
Samsung pulls sheets off costly phone-cum-fondleslab Galaxy Fold – and a hefty 5G monster
Oldest white dwarf star catches amateur's eye – and its dusty ring leaves boffins baffled
Dratted hipster UX designers stole my corporate app
Saturday 16th February 2019 10:57 GMT
Re: I'm hoping UX/responsive design is a phase
Responsive design is a design that responds to the format in which it's being viewed. UX is user experience.
Good UX would require responsive design that maximises easy user interaction. minimises confusion, and avoids "mystery meat" interfaces.
What you want is not an end to UX/responsive design, but responsive design that sticks to good UX principles instead of just being a hamburger and an endless trail of whitespace.
After outrage over Chrome ad-block block plan, Google backs away from crippling web advert, content filters
Saturday 16th February 2019 08:54 GMT
Re: So, basically, no change there
No root for my phone just yet (at least last time I checked), but I only use a couple of paid apps and Firefox, so I never sent ads either.
Next phone will have to be one I can root and strip out the Google crap entirely. Maybe lineage has a rom for this one now...
Yay, we got a B for maths. Literally, a bee: Little nosy nectar nerds smart enough to add, abstract numbers
Google: All your leaked passwords are belong to us – here's a Chrome extension to find them
Post-Brexit plan for .EU tweaked: No dot-EU web domains for Europeans in UK, no appeals, etc
Monday 28th January 2019 20:47 GMT
They're being obtuse, but that's not unusual for certain EU organisations (*cough*patents*cough*). Most of the geo tlds with citizenship restrictions don't care where you are as long as you can prove where you came from and it works quite nicely, even if it does mean I can't register .no domains for funsies.
Oh well.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
