Posts by David Dawson

Re: Climate Atheists

Unfortunately, eugenics, brought to the fore by the origin of species, was used, repeatedly, as a reason for conquest, and to justify genocide.

People can be horrible, no matter their belief system.

Re: What?

And seriously, what kind of inept company did they use if they left all their logging in the release build? I mean, some logging stays in sure, but nothing on the sensitive data. After this I don't think I'd ever use the app no matter how many 'security updates' they release.

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Thats not the problem, logging shouldn't matter one bit.

The problem here is that the communication between client and server is not correctly secured and authorised. The server should enforce security in all cases. The client can do so too, but their issue is server side.

Re: Why not compile the Dart environment into JS?

Check out source maps. They let you debug code that is running in JS in the original language.

Re: Just think - this could have been VBscript

LOL

No, it really isn't crap. You make the mistake of conflating polyglot with integration, and integration with middleware, and if you take it further, thence to the fable ESB, which is the evil everyone should really fear.

I'm talking doing some processing in one language, then other processing in a different language. how you shift data between them is certainly a problem, but it is a solved problem.

The JVM is good at this, so is the CLR. Javascript is well on its way to becoming another system that permits polyglot programming well.

If yoou have one runtime environment that permits many languages, the problem is solved. If you want to use a language that isn't in that same environment then you require some form of integration. Depending on your needs there are many different forms they can take, middleware is only one of them, and not a particularly nice one at that.

In a JVM system I could write my DB integration in Groovy, data transformation in Clojure and threading code in Scala, with each language helping me perform that task, and no integration code required.

So, is this crap? Or were you being a little... rapid in your judgements?

Re: Impressive

32gb ram to service 500 concurrent users in java?

Either this is made up, or someone has done a truly awful job...

Re: Noise cancelling headphones

This is why you should always carry Noise canceling headphones.

When the noisy person starts up, you pop a fresh battery in, press the button on the top, wait for the red light to come on indicating that the unit is ready, then ram the whole shebang down their gullet until the noise stops.

You hostess has thoughtfully provided a little plastic package of "cheese" to keep their jaw open if they start biting your fingers, or just get another passenger to help - you'd be surprised how public spirited your fellow passengers can be.

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GENIUS!

Re: Monumental...

I may be showing my age but I have to ask, isn't he a fad?

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I hope so.

Re: Man in the middle?

Without knowing the implementation they've used, asymmetric/ public key transfers are designed specifically to prevent man in the middle attacks over insecure networks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography

It allows the creation of trust over a public network, and it does work, both theoretically and practically.

It has been subverted in a few ways :-

* Brute force decrypt the messages. Frankly highly unlikely, the good algorithms have an average decrypt time in the millions of years using todays hardware.

* Inject a flaw into the original crypto algorithm.

* Impersonate the remote by taking control of the trust key chain.

The last two are what the NSA does. If you are generating your own keys, then that leaves only the second, as there is no trust chain.

Re: Exclsive rights

Yes, I think that is the issue really. Their process for accepting submissions appears to be fully automated, which is the mistake here.

Re: Good job Iain-Duckegg-Smith doesn't work at Tescos.

While the implementation is obviously going quite wrong, the core idea is really quite sound.

The way that the current benefits system is constructed is a poverty trap. Once you are in, its really difficult to get out.

The reason is that you received many different benefits at once, housing, job seekers, income support etc. When you earn a pound more than the threshold, a pound is removed from each of your benefits. So earning a pound leaves you several pounds worse off. You have to get a large increase in income at once to get beyond the hump, essentially replacing all the benefit payments in one go, or you end up worse off for working harder. So, a poverty trap.

The core idea with this is to have a single benefit calculation that tapers properly, so earning that pound is actually worth it.

If it could work just like that, it will be better. If.

Re: Apple/Samsung buying ARM

Last time I heard, many of the major licensees each already holds significant shareholdings in ARM, enough for just a couple of them to block a takeover by one of the others.

They are all invested in the continuing independence of ARM.

Re: I AM ANONYMOUS !

Unfortunately, that renders you merely Pseudonymous. Which is still pretty cool; you don't get a pre-fabbed mask, but you get to choose your own icon.

In a somewhat revolutionary stance (cue jokes about legend in own wardrobe etc), I have chosen my pseudonym to be precisely the same as my current real name.

+1 for crashplan.

I back up desktops to a server/ NAS combo using it, and then to a second remote NAS.

I signed up for their pay service/ remote cloud thing too, so it all streams up to the interwebs. Took a few weeks to get synced properly, but it worked really well.

Got a dropbox daemon running against a section of it (documents), so I can get the benefits of that system as well.

Re: a simple thought experiment

You've missed the point of this a little.

The experiment is like this.

Sample 1, starts at 20c. Put it in a freezer, time how long it takes to freeze, that's result A.

Sample 2, starts at 60, put it in a freezer. Time from the moment it hits 20c until it freezes, that's result B.

You would expect them to be the same, being the time taken to freeze water from 20c, but it isn't. B < A.

Water that starts warmer will take a shorter time to freeze from a given temperature than water that starts at that same given temperature.

Re: Here we go again...

iphones cost that much for a new 5s. (£549 in the apple shop)

Top end androids cost around this, or more.

Re: One hopes ...

I'm currently helping to teach the new Computer Science GCSE that is replacing the ICT qualifications.

I'm also a programmer with 10 years exp in a variety of languages running a UK wide software consultancy doing work in big and small companies on system structure and design </appeal_to_authority>

The course is good, very good in fact. There are a couple of rough edges (notably the software life cycle bit), but overall its excellent. The kids are engaged and excited about making the computer do things they didn't know were even an option for them.

This is a tremendous success story for UK and everyone who pushed for it over the years, including the government, deserves a big pat on the back.

We have adopted python 3, as thats what the other schools in the area are using and resources are available for. The kids are amused by me teaching myself python in front of them, and they learn it all the better.

It will have replaced ICT at the GCSE level totally within another year, and across the region within another couple, as far as I can see, and is being pushed further down in the curriculum.

Just a few years from now, every child coming through school will have been exposed to programming and have seen and used imperative languages, mobile apps, declarative (HTML essentially) and made web pages from the bottom up.

This year 10 GCSE group is learning python and making simple programmes already, and they will each have made a game, with graphics and sound, by the end of the academic year, and understand how and why it works.

Now, you may say, there is a shortage of teachers, however there is not. There is a shortage of skills, certainly, and a big push is in progress to give the needed skills to teachers and provide them with help. Guess why I'm there? I provide the technical assistance until the teacher is confident enough to do things alone.

So, you cynics, get off your arses, stop complaining about ICT, and go and change things. The possibilities are there now --> See http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/

Run by Simon Peyton Jones aka, Mr Haskell (a very very clever chap, and all round nice guy).

Schools need programmers to go and help. (Reg staff, fancy promoting this more?)

It is the UK, no territorial sovereignty is ceded to an embassy whatsoever, its confusing who owns the territory over who is permitted to control what goes on.

The vienna conventions, which the UK is signed up to, allow embassies and embassy staff to be temporarily excluded from certain laws and regulations.

Notably, the convention says that the host country cannot enter the embassy without the permission of the ambassador/ consul (can't remember which).

So, the UK retains ownership of the territory in all cases, but in some cases permits, through an act of parliament, the ambassador to control what goes on.

The law as it stands here is that any member of the embassy staff, the ambassador, and the embassy itself, can have its status revoked with notice can cause. This is what the home secretary threatened at the time, but backed down when they realised it would be far more productive to simply let him stew.

it does illuminate the sovereignty question though that this is possible.

Re: FACT talking bollocks

What ever happened in the case?

Re: Variety is the spice of life

Its describing all the bits of an entire stack explicitly rather than just saying 'we used oracle'.

The original oracle solution will have all of these bits too, just wrapped in proprietary boxes, or possibly as hardware (eg, a hardware load balancer rather than HA Proxy)

On python, the vast majority of time spent in this style of applications is in IO, normally with a database or messaging system. The application language is very rarely the cause of a slow down, as its not doing anything particularly algorithmic.

Witness the rise of systems like Node.js that solve this. Javascript is really quite slow (test it, please!) compared to other options, but the app framework is built to handle IO more intelligently, allowing far larger scale systems than the alternative systems with a more traditional threading model.

Re: So one 0 day vuln in the JVM and...

ah, I see what your point was now, and it wasn't sidestepped, it was that I don't see this as an issue.

Yes, I would expect people to run multiples of these on the same hypervisor, however, the hypervisor is in charge of protecting itself, and does so. It stops its guests from doing naughty things, whether they are fully fledged multi tasking OS' or something very different, like these app container things.

Eg, You can run your custom OS on AW (which uses Xen), but you wouldn't expect to be able to take over host, no matter what guest OS you run.

Re: No need to worry...

Better the Devil you know ? Thats what made this kind of mess in the first place.

No thanks. Risk management shouldn't be about identifying risks, it should be about trying to reduce them, by trying new things in a controlled way.

Re: Old Age

Right wing does not equal centralised control.

Stalin was hard left wing in economic and social ideology, and was totally centrally controlled. Similarly, the Italian fascist government of mussollini was hard right wing in economic and social ideology, but also applied total centralised control.

The axis of political thought that you are looking for is totalitarian <--> libertarian, with the power being vested totally in the state or the individual.

This is orthogonal to both economic and social ideology.

Debasing the meaning of words does no one any favours.

Re: What about our copyrights?

"off-topic @Daivid Dawson: what kind of answer is that? It's ok for the government to take things away since they created it?

If one day the UK is to be hit by a meteorite, and the UK government decided to suspend all telecommunications, air and cross-channel traffic to prevent panicks and to only allow the "privileged" to safely escape the country, according to your reasoning, it's ok to do that since they created much of what modern society is made up of.

I didn't realise we're still a bunch of serfs under the feudal system."

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In this country, Parliament is sovereign, so yes, if the government chose to do that, then that would be legal, which is a different thing to 'ok'. Legal and moral/ ethical are separate concepts I'm afraid.

Sorry you had to find out this way. I wish they would teach this kind of thing in school.

"Er, and other governments. The UK government can pass laws overriding the copyright it grants, but not that granted by the USA, France, Germany, China..."

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Only so far as the law in this country respects those other countries laws. Which is what sovereign means. This is an important distinction! The UK has signed up to copyright treaties, so I imagine they would be respected...

Re: Systems architect here

Then again, he once built a 3 ft extension to his house using the same design techniques he uses for bridges, so perhaps he was serious...

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It is the most robust extension I've ever seen though. I'm pretty sure it will out last the house. All 3ft of it.

Re: So... what happened to te water?

Heh, that would be solar wind, not state.