Posts by Charlie Clark 12169 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Apr 2007
Why are you not having another referendum?
Because the first one was such a stupid idea! Having another one (what would the question be?) wouldn't be popular (and not just with Brenda from Bristol) and probably wouldn't change anything. Downside: everybody gets riled up again. Upside: can't really think of one.
Why specify C-like languages for this, when your statement is true for all languages?
C-like languages seem to suffer from some problems more than others. There are reasons for this, of course, and the problems are really with the programmers rather than the language. Some languages have attempted to avoid some of the pitfalls associated with C which is why I mentioned Rust. I think that Firefox uses it for handling CSS but I could be wrong. Would in any case be useful to know whether it has been as useful as they hoped.
What does this really say about the Chakra Core?
That, as relatively new code, it probably has yet to be detected vulnerabilities? The "I didn't expect that to happen sort" that are almost unavoidable with C languages. Would be interesting to know whether Mozilla's shift to Rust for some stuff has brought them the improved security they were hoping for.
If you released a de-compiled version of a corporations software, that let anyone look for bugs in it, would it be illegal.
Depends largely on the jurisdiction. In many countries reverse engineering of software is illegal. We largely have the DMCA to thank for that.
That's because the source is OPEN, and can be reviewed directly by security researchers and quality-minded people
What a load of cock! While I like open source and contribute to it, the idea that making the source available automatically guarantees quality let alone security has been debunked long ago. Not just the infamous flaws in openssl but also, if memory serves, backdoors planted in my favourite unix.
The kind of static code analysis that open source provides is also a poor guide for security. So, unless projects are actively being tested for vulnerabilities, and contrary to your assertion, there is not an army of expert penetration testers out there constantly scrutinising open source projects (largely because no one is paying them to do so) so lots of known vulnerabilities will remain blissfully undetected.
They (the Jormans) have some nice stuff, but you wouldn't think it based on the crap they export to us.
Well, that's largely true for most of the wine that the UK imports! But German wine has significantly improved from the days of Blue Nun and Black Tower (neither of which I've ever seen here). Like many European winemakers, they benefitted enormously from the expertise and techniques that the Australians brought to the business. The sparkling wines from my vintner have bee given the thumbs up by all my sister-in-laws.
Like many things, the Dutch have optimised their production processes for an international market that has no taste. This is as true for their water masquerading as beer (Heineken) as it is for the equally ubiquitous and equally bland Gouda. But they can and do and make and mature proper cheeses.
As a kid we had to suffer red balls of Edam because my mum basically doesn't like cheese. Strange thing is I've never seen these abominations in any of the provinces and certainly not in Edam itself, which is a lovely little cheese.
Given a choice I prefer a strong, crumbly Cheddar or a French, non-dairy (sheep, goats) cheese but my local farmer's market does a nice line in Dutch-style cheeses with fenugreek or mustard seeds.
However, elsewhere I noticed there's been another legal campaign against the roquefort mould that gives us our lovely Stilton.
I strongly disagree with this assertion. PWAs threaten to make the web an even more dangerous and hostile medium than it already is.
How exactly? Service workers have no access to the DOM and all code is tied to the origin. I'm no fan of Javascript everywhere, and particularly dislike SPAs ("Single Page Apps"), but baseless scaremongering helps no one.
No it's not. REST has nothing to do with rendering, ps scheduling or even simple things like FS access or user perms
I never suggested it was I specifically referred to the huge number of apps that do depend on REST. Of course, it doesn't work for everything but for all those travel & search apps, it's great idea.
PWAs are a mess
You seem to be conflating two things: PWAs and Electron/Node.Js based desktop apps.
PWAs are great additions to websites and easy to implement for mobile devices. Electron isn't required as they just need a browser runtime. Lots of apps can be implemented as PWAs and distributed without having to use an app store.
Bridging the gap from mobile to desktop is part of the ChromeOS everywhere strategy which is less interesting and more of a challenge. Some desktop/mobile apps work well – Telegram seems well done to me – others less so.
A new kid out of computer science school has been taught with a spreadsheet mentality that is enforced by the simplicity that some of the NoSQL tools have
If that's the case then don't employ anyone who graduates from such schools! That relational database theory is based on maths doesn't mean it has to be avoided!
No word from ElReg on how a face scanner is probably not a good idea
Apart from the notes in the article that biometrics are inherently not secure… The review even briefly touches on the quality of the radios in case anyone wanting to use the phone as a phone is interested.
I'm not currently looking for a new phone but credit where credit's due: an impressive device. But it's got a notch and Huawei phones are not well supported by Lineage OS, so not for me even if I was looking.
As hard as I try, I cannot make myself think of Material Design as "getting things right".
I suspect you're just being snarky. If you compare apps before and after Material I think you'll find more recent ones are more consistent. Material Design, of course, builds on classic UX patterns but also incorporates lessons learned fom IOS and, yes, Windows Phone. Which is one of the reasons why the various platforms are increasingly interchangeable.
To summarise: I think that Material Design provides a coherent metaphor for design elements that recognises the importance of visual effects but subordinates them to functionality. Eg., the darkening around a screen press: the effect reinforces the action and is thus meaningul. I don't think this is particularly revolutionary or magical, just well applied, well documented and it provided a useable toolbox for developers.
Right enough of the whalesong guff, I've off to shoot some kittens!
I don't mind TouchWiz that much. I do mind not being able to remove preinstalled crap and tardy updates. Fortunately, nearly all Samsung's are easy to root and well supported by LineageOS. :-)
OneUI looks to me mainly like adopting Material Design, which makes sense because it gets a lot of things right.
Do you really think IT security policies would be better under Hillary?
No, I'd just expect different groups to be lobbying and blocking each other. But she might at least be more actively involved in developing policy and less obsessed with doing stadium tours.
Until then companies can, and generally do, do what the hell they like. And the new Congress isn't likely to help: the House may propose something but the Senate and the Big Orange Baby will shoot it down. Won't really matter because none of them will really understand in it anyway and will write it whatever their richest lobbiest wants.*
So, prepare to wait for, I don't know, a class action due to houses burning down because the IoT smart home stuff fucks up to work its way through the courts, impose swingeing fines and create legislation through precedent. As has been the case for the last 40-odd years.
* I call it the Greenback Wave.
IMHO, of course, but I don't see a device that unfolds to a roughly 4:3 like this one, and is only 7.3" at that, being much of a success.
Why are you so hung up on the specs of the demo device? It was so obviously a protoype but there are presumably multiple different designs currently being tested. We'll probably know more in a couple of months but until then we should assume that, at least some of the people in Samsung are thinking about the right form factors for their target markets. Personally, I think that A6 -> A5 would be a good place to start but we'll all just have to wait and see.
@DougS – no shit Sherlock. But, again, this is something that the company understands well. There are bound to be issues with the screens, temperature is particularly likely to be a problem, but I'd expect the mechanical stuff to be well understood and appropriately tested. Unlike, say, the antenna problems of a certain rival phone maker when it decided that an aluminium cage was the best thing to put a radio in, because it was so beautiful.
Just open it enough times and the display will start to degrade...
Given that Samsung is an industrial conglomerate with a small consumer electronics business, I think they might be aware of that and have done the tests. In fact the presentation goes into that including needing a new adhesive to cope with the folding.
Due to difficult of producing large OLED panels, Samsung has retreated from pushing them for monitors so I wouldn't expect to see them pushing the folding screens there soon. Assuming they can make the panels then I suspect they will initiialy all go to phones for the time being: think of the price of a TV 55" that would equate to the number of S9s that can be made from the same OLED panel.
Watch the presentation (about 1:22 in) because it is quite interesting. Flexible displays are hard™ and a lot of the technologies and materials that we hoped could be used have failed to deliver. Yes, it's important to see what is actually available and at what cost but mass production is due to start over the "next few months".
Personally, I think the technology could really be revolutionary but as to whether it will be Samsung that makes the most of it, well, that's another question, because I'm sure we will see a slew of interesting but ultimately useless designs.
The presentations, however, are worth watching. While "One UI" looks like an admission that Samsung fucked up UX for years, it also shows that they've finally started thinking about the users. Basically the biggest indication so far that Samsung has a coherent strategy for breaking out of the consumer electronics follower segment.
Why should the OS be smaller on devices Apple has full control over?
In theory because it needs fewer drivers for varying hardware configurations. But, basically people who buy I-Phones and moan about storage only have themselves to blame. You want lots of reasonably priced storage? Buy something that supports SD cards.
Has April come early? No, everything tells me it's still November but this does read like an April Fool. Except it's just yet another example of government imitating satire…
Hang on, I've got an idea for a Blockchain Sitcom. Must be worth a couple of million for a feasibility study…
Why is it necessary to waste energy whinging about it and accusing other people of being idiots because they don't agree?
Discussion, including whingeing, is part of the debate culture and also helps sets prices. Sure, people should spend their money on whatever they want but how do we get to decide whether it's good value if not through comparison and discussion. Personally, my biggest beef with Apple is their inherently anti-competitive approach.
I personally don't like iPhones much but I have to suffer them because the alternative option is so completely shit.
You're being disingenuous by pretending to be above the debate, while taking a swipe.
Assuming I average 5 years a device
I think that's stretching it. You might get 5 years but I'd use 4 for any kind of calculation and you'd have to factor in Apple's desire to increase the ASP. Mind you, I think your maths is more of an excuse and less of argument. For any kind of monthly payment I'd expect instant replacements to be included, which is definitely not the case with Apple.
I've had a Mac since 2006 but the I-Phones have never appealed. Not putting all your eggs into one basket is a strategy that I do follow.
I wait to hear more about the Lib Dem thing. I thought parties got privileged access to extra electoral roll data, that doesn't go to marketing lists. Surely they don't get the right to sell that on?
Having given the LDs some money in 2016 I subsequently received several campaign-related e-mails all from the LDs which I all deleted but nothing else and since GDPR came into force I've had nothing. Wish I could say that about other mailshots I continue to receive. But, yeah, it should all be investigated.
It *might* not just be the Russians that are bankrolling it.
I think Russian involvement is largely overplayed. Most of the money came from special interest groups who see a financial benefit for them in being able to opt out of lots of legislation (employment, environmental and, yes, privacy) that they don't like. They should be shown up for the hyprocrites they are and the hollow lie of taking back control be exposed for the hoodwinking it was.
The problem isn't the radios or the screen it's the annoying lazy scriptkiddies who think that just because you've got a RAM space of 6gb,
Modern browsers will happily grab a couple of GB because of the work they have to do with modern websites. Then there is the VM-based architecture of the platform which is supposed to prevent rogue apps bringing everything else down or stealing data.
Yes, there are still apps out which use far more resources than necessary but it's also time to stop fighting the battles of the 1990s. More cores and more RAM, with the correct power management makes sense.
As Dave559 wrote above, “the chipset in the Gemini isn't the most Linux-friendly”.
This was obvious from the word go but didn't stop Linux fanbois moaning. I don't really see why people need more than a good SSH client and Juice is fine for that. But basically only Mediatek can make their chips suitable for Linux. Planet must concentrate more on supporting Android properly or working with vendors to get things like Sailfish OS running well. Even I personally don't use it as such, the Gemini is essentially a phone and if you want a palmtop running Linux you should be looking elsewhere.
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