Posts by Joe Werner

So it is their own fault for being homeless? No economic downturn, gentrification, strong hire-and-fire capitalism, "rightsizing" the company to increase the "shareholder value", or sometimes really just ending up in bad company and it's all downhill form there. No social security to try and catch you and push you up into the working populace again (or at least try). I cannot imagine that they really want to live in the streets.

And by your argument European cities should have many more homeless than US cities. Hint: Most don't.

Re: Eventually ...

When I'm overseas I actually get that exact feeling: constant ads, banners, blinking whatever.

(and that's only the printed "newspapers" ;-p )

Re: Gimme speed

Plus you have to factor in the amount of time it costs for the rewrite. Honestly: Unless you run it several times you don't bother. If it can be solved "quickly enough" it is good enough, and if it can be sped up by parallelised code that's an order of magnitude you have. And that is "for free" (depends on the OS, really easy under any *nix-like system, i.e. Linux or MacOS) if you just have to link against openBLAS instead of your bog-standard BLAS in case you are doing a lot of linear algebra stuff. Or if you have stuff that is embrassingly parallel (i.e. just several processes that do not need to communicate).

One other thing: make sure that stuff is using the correct layout in arrays, there is some speed-up just from changing between column-major and row-major ordering (which is language dependent).

Don't bother about the rest. That's what the compiler should do and optimised libraries take care of.

Re: Can we have more of that

Well, they only need to stick to the laws where they operate. And their business partners cannot be forced contractually to break the law.

Nothing new to be seen, move along.

Re: Oh Lord

I guess that's the point. If they cannot build this stuff to function reliably, what can we expect for self driving cars?

nice...

... though this still counts as a missed test...

Re: printed version

There seems to be a printed version as well - at least it is listed on the page.

Re: The cameras in modern phones can be impressively good

Yeah, I talked to some Northern-Lights-Tours-Guides recently (well.... last winter) and one of them was a photographer. He was actually quite impressed what people can do today with their mobes when out watching the aurora. He is indeed carrying a ton of stuff, and his pictures are better, sure, but he also spent a lot more on the equipment...

Re: RE: Come IndyScotland and, hopefully, IndyWales

Norway was occupied by ze krauts in WW2. They were one of Europe's poorest countries until the oil was found. Quite sensibly they put a lot of that income to the side for times when 1) there is no more oil or 2) prices go down. They had to use some of the money... dunno... two or so years ago. Norway got lucky with the oil. They mostly did not want to be part of the EU due to the fishery rights.

And one thing: the EU was meant originally as a political union, not a purely economic free trade zone. Basically a political union to stop going to war with each other (mostly Germany and France (der Erbfeind!) ), which was quite en vogue in the 19th and 20th century.

Re: Not quite

That might well be the case.

Maybe somebody can comment on my thoughts below, since I have not lived in Australia.

My experience down under: went to visit a friend and colleague and got a SIM card from him so I have mobile internet and can make some calls. It was mostly for business, but after some time with him I went along the west coast (up to Cape Range National Park). I did have to chuck in my Norwegian SIM to keep contact with my family 'cause Vodafone had no coverage outside the bigger places...

Two things: they do have a monopoly in some places and maybe they have some infrastructure that generates low income out there. In the first case they charge what they can get away with, the second point means that they do have to charge more.

Re: Dumb drivers

Cars? Why on earth cars?

Do trains first. Should be simpler, right?

Re: Excuses Excuses.........

Yeah, they then can no longer use the "Brussels made us do it!" excuse - at least that's the hope...

Seriously: the governments of the EU member states have a say in how the rules are made in the EU, and then they go home and say that "it was the EU wot made us do it". All of them, all member states. It is obvious that they are incompetent OR lying (and that's a logical OR, not an XOR)

Re: Facebook wants you to share its delusion

No. The problem is Facebook slurping data of non-users as well... through address book imports, tagged pictures, buttons etc. on websites.

Re: CA government is so corrupt

1) you turn everything into "democrats are bad!" that ticks me off. Not because it's the democrats and republicans are in your mind flawless, but rather because you generalise and turn everything into a partisan thing. Seems to be all the rage at the moment, but it is fundamentally stupid. (and lobbyists will bribe all in power, no matter the party, look at the federal level)

2) no power? Right. They didn't have a republican senator from Austria, didn't they?

3) yeah, this counts as feeding the troll. No, you are not a troll in general, only when it comes to politics. But you are not the only one of those around here...

Re: Sendmail hacking to the rescue

I do beg to differ: our first pc, an IBM .... 80something-or-other had a harddisk. I think something like 20MB? And two 5.25" floppy drives.

My first PC with the non-floppy 3.5" floppies had a 250MB hdd. That was... in the early-to-mid 90s

Re: There's Nothing Wrong With QWERTY...

Yeah, after all the first line of the keyboard reads qwertz ;)

Re: DIY Cloud

Simon (the BOFH) would also include OS/2 users in that list ;p

I wouldn't call this "social" media - for me this is work ;p

Re: No working for free

Yes, if you are self-employed you are your own boss and get to decide this. You can go cycling as early as you wish, or you can work as long as you want to (or see the need to). This is both a blessing and a curse.

If I read business mails after hours I actually take TIL (no overtime payment...). Simples. I have not been questioned about this, but I do this openly. There are also times when I work really crazy hours (deadlines, inspiration strikes).

One thing: my next employer forbids me to clock time on Sundays. Thus: no business mails on Sundays. No exception, unless something burns (and then it is probably not my immediate problem and dealing with it early on Monday is probably good enough).

Re: Ha

"Rules imposed"...

Yeah, f'ing hell! All governments complain at home that "the EU wants this". All of them. And those same idiots did vote for these rules beforehand. But it's so much easier to shift the blame to some abstract construct than to actually stand up for their decisions. And people actually eat this shite up and say that the bad EU wants their government to do stuff (that the government voted for...)

And this is one of the problems we now have. In all European countries (including the island nations like the UK or Iceland ;p ).

Cowards, all of them. All focused just on being reelected. Somehow I like the ancient Greek (ok... Athens? Not sure...) system, when anybody's time in an official position was limited to one period...

Sorry for the rant, but this is what really ticks me off (and OS/2...)

Re: YAAC offered, "UK official stopping distance at 30mph is 23m"

Yeah, the calculations are nice - but do not take into account the fixed reaction time. I guess... half marks?

I guess as soon as that guy hacked the card into pieces it ceased to be a valid card. Hence "no ticket" (has to be glad it wasn't a Zeppelin)

Re: Let the police to the police work already!

I understand that point.

Stupid counterexample: Say I own a house. I allow people to come in and peddle drugs or other illegal goods. I would argue that by letting people come in and openly do that I can be held complicit in any of these crimes - under current law. Similar if you allow people to share illegal material through your platform. As soon as you are aware of what's going on you have to stop and report it. Closing your eyes and going "lalalalalaaa, I cannot see you" doesn't help you.

As I said, that's a stupid but maybe sort of helpful example.

And no, I cannot think of a good solution. But I think if you are a copyright holder you should get paid for your work. And if you use a software library without a clear license agreement for anything production you deserve to be hit with a sockful of thinwire terminators - that argument by Github doesn't count.

Re: What DOES the EU Want Google to Be?

We-ell, as I understand it, the EU (well, NT1 and NT2) wants Google to remove the search results that are tied to that specific name (and that specific crime), not remove them from history (or police the internet). As I understand it, searching for e.g. works of the reporter that wrote the article would probably - and should - show them still. What the "right to be forgotten" means is that when searching for your name together with the thing you want to be forgotten nothing should come up. And that is for Google, Yahoo, Bing, duckduckgo, Facebook, ... and I guess that all of these could be targeted. Google is just the big name, so of course the focus is on them. They do not make the information inaccessible, it is still there and you might stumble across it when searching for other things. Like when it was about some bribes when building a new airport, searching the history of development of the airport will likely turn up newspaper articles (even if indirectly) mentioning that case.

Also it is judges that decide which data should not be listed and not the governments - separation of powers etc. The judicative should be independent from political influence, but of course the laws are passed by the legislative powers, which are the parliament (varies a bit depending on where you live, though), so there are politics coming in from that side.

Re: time to learn Linux

Because this is the year of Linux on the desktop? ;p

Re: What part of Brexit don't they understand?

And I still don't get it: It was a non-binding referendum... called by an idiot to appease his party... and now the next idiot called early elections and lost quite a number of seats, and then one idiot who was all for leaving buggered off but now is back and.... Let's see what happens next. It is a bit like a burning train going towards a chasm, with a nuclear bomb strapped on top. If it was not such a serious subject (and I was not in the blast radius) I would just order a few beer and sit at the sidelines to enjoy the spectacle.

It really and honestly makes me sad, for all parties involved. I can very well remember e.g. the pre-Schengen travels, and the weird borders, custom controls etc.. I have now been working in different countries in the EEA, and it is damned convenient the way it is. I have colleagues from the UK working in mainland Europe, and they are concerned. I have colleagues from other EEA countries working in the UK and they are, of course, even unhappier. Of course I am one of those people that have no home according to some... (well, I'm at home in Europe, that's how I feel)

What I don't like about the EU is that some (well, all of them do this. All of them. Makes me despair. And mad!) governments vote for some rules and then go home and tell the population that it was the EU's fault. Dudes, you just voted for that yourselves! And having learned quite a bit about 19th and 20th century history, the last thing we want is to splinter everything up into small nations that hate each others guts. Again. This takes more effort than constant scaremongering à la "the people from (the PIIGS/ Southern Europe/ Eastern Europe/ the neighbour country/ the North) that are (coming and stealing our jobs/ want all our money/ treat us unfairly and eat all our nurses/ whatever..)". From all sides. But it is so much easier to go back to the nationalism we had pre WW-I. Great.

Historically speaking: The EU was more or less based on the French-German treaties (notably the Elysée treaty), that were started between both countries under de Gaulle and Adenauer. They actually (as I understand the comments) did want an even deeper political union than what we have now. While this was not possible (mostly because the Brits were against it, and as part of the allied forces they could tell Germany not to do stuff), there was always that goal in the background. So, as it did not work that way, the idea was then (well, an idea at least) to achieve this through a trade union that would progressively get closer connections and a closer political union. One of the guys who pushed this theory was called Jean Jacques Monnét (not sure about the spelling, but a fitting name ;) ). From a historical point of view: The UK should never have joined, as they have always been against this process. Still: it makes me sad.

Re: Am I a bad person...

Yes, but so are most (if not all) of us.... and we do not have a bad conscience, so we don't need to ask such a silly question ;-)

... and I hope in time the add-on voids left do get filled ...

'cept they ain't.

The problem is that many of these are not possible with the new framework...

(but I can see why one would like to get rid of the old cruft in the code to make it maintainable...)