* Posts by Gareth Gouldstone

135 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Apr 2007

Page:

Python swallows Java to become second-most popular programming language... according to this index

Gareth Gouldstone

Re: Python is not turned for speed

Python is not a pure OO language. It is a general purpose scripting language based on Objects. Some general things that non-OO people might use are implemented as functions, like print() and len(). In reality, they interact with the object via methods, obj.__str__() and obj__len__(), respectively. So the object itself decides what is printed and determines its own length, if any.

Gareth Gouldstone

Re: Python is not turned for speed

len(obj) is a higher abstraction of obj.__len__() to allow non OO programmers to feel comfortable. So you could do it if you want to write ugly code!

Gareth Gouldstone

Re: Sin tax

PEP 8 - Style Guide for Python. Indentation use 4 spaces per indentation level.

https://pep8.org/

Soz fanbois, Apple DIDN'T invent the smartphone after all

Gareth Gouldstone
FAIL

Remember this...?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/23/iphone_will_fail/page2.html

Chill, luvvies. The ‘unsustainable’ BBC Telly Tax stays – for now

Gareth Gouldstone

Re: there is no means-tested element whatsoever

I wonder how many 'poor' households have a 60" set, satellite dish and a full package of channels, costing a lot more every month than the licence fee...

Microsoft shareholders wave through CEO Satya Nadella's massive pay package

Gareth Gouldstone
Unhappy

Re: Nice

Privatise the profit, socialise the losses. Except in this case they are indirectly paying his salary and bonus from the welfare budget, so guess they have anti-socialised the profit...

Hey, Apple! We can land a probe on a comet, but we can't have a 12.9in iPad 'until mid-2015'?

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Waiting to register...

a suitable name as a trademark.

iSlab?

iSlate?

iFul?

iWad?

Is Apple incubating a Macbook, iPad bastard child?

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Re: Apple Touchscreen?

Yep, it's called an iPad...

If you want a touch interface on a Mac that is called a Trackpad and you can use gestures to interact with the system without having to point at a vertical screen. Great, innit?

Microsoft on the Threshold of a new name for Windows next week

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Winsome

adjective

attractive or appealing in a fresh, innocent way

fist-bumping is good for your health, says respected surveyor

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Re: I prefer the Native American Indian gesture...

Or the five point palm exploding heart technique, perhaps?

What data recovery software would you suggest?

Gareth Gouldstone
Thumb Up

Carbon Copy Cloner...

is better than Time Machine for creating bootable images of your Mac. Not free, but a lifesaver on many occasions.

Nintendo says sorry, but there will be NO gay marriage in Tomodachi Life ... EVER

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Re: "How do you know you were different?"

It was more about having a crush on men and being very happy to spend time with girls, I guess. And not being interested in ball games (although that is a stereotype, of course).

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

"How many people knew they were gay when they were 5 or 6?"

I knew when I was five that I was different. I didn't have a name for it until I was thirteen, by which time I had learned that it was 'wrong' to feel like I did. 48 years later I would hope that kids can see role models for how they are rather than how their parents would like them to be.

Report: Apple seeking to raise iPhone 6 price by a HUNDRED BUCKS

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

bah!

If it has a bigger screen than the iPhone5, this sheep ain't following the herd!

I want a phone (y'know, calls, text, bit of t'internet) not a portable cinema.

baaaah!

SCRAP the TELLY TAX? Ancient BBC Time Lords mull Beeb's future

Gareth Gouldstone

Re: fund it from general taxation

Except that that makes the BBC a state organ and (even more) subject to the whims of the government of the day. At least the licence fee and the Royal Charter give the BBC nominal independence from the state.

Apple plans to waggle iNormous 4½-incher in fanbois' faces

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Dressing to the left

I suppose those larger phones are carried in the front left pocket to increase the Visible Packet Lump...

'Leaked' iPhone 6 pics will make cool fanbois WEEP - it's a PHABLET

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Trousers hanging below cheek level...

owing to over-size phablet in pocket!

Please supply belt, braces or a Manbag with larger-sized phones...

Speaking in Tech: When will I buy a 4K TV? When they make one that LOOKS COOL

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

British houses...

are rarely built to accomodate screens larger than than 40". Maybe house-builders could start to get more generous with the proportions so that the larger screens do not dominate the living space. Nothing looks more naff than a 60" screen in a 10' * 12' room!

Big goolies-grabbing black snake nips unlucky bloke's trouser snake

Gareth Gouldstone

Re: Spoilsport though I know I'm being...

IT angle: it's the angle of the dangle...

WTF is... NFV: All your basestations are belong to us

Gareth Gouldstone

Software as a (dis)service...

It seems that these days it is considered acceptable if things work 'most of the time', even if the service is worse than what we had before. Think digital tv dropouts, DAB car radios and VoIP reliability. They all 'work' more often than not but when there are problems it tends to be worse or more annoying than the older, dedicated hardware issues or analog interference. Ditto web-based apps vs full-fat local apps.

Hello Warsaw: Greenland ice loss will be OK 'even under extreme scenarios'

Gareth Gouldstone

Re: I have said it before i will say it again

Ahh, the Great Unmentionable…

+1 for mentioning it.

Apple, for one, welcomes its ROBOT factory OVERLORDS

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Re: How much?

Robots require neither light nor toilet breaks...

A Tapestry of network complexity

Gareth Gouldstone

Older Tapestry

Remember this?

http://www.cbronline.com/news/torus_systems_launches_tapestry_6_pack

How time (and technology) flies.

Steve Jobs' death clears way for '13-inch' JUMBO iPAD HYPEGASM

Gareth Gouldstone
Stop

Re: What's with big screens...

Screen sizes are being pushed upwards; try finding anything smaller that 4" these days. So choice is limited to large, larger or largest...

Gareth Gouldstone
Stop

What's with big screens...

I want a phone I can slip in a pocket, not one that requires I carry a man-bag...

The Metro experiment is dead: Time to unleash Windows Phone+

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Re: As predictable as night following day

Much like articles about Apple products, then...

Apple's next OS X said to be targeted at 'power users'

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Re: bring back 'save as'

Just hold down the Option/alt key whilst clicking the File menu - Bingo!

LHC spots mesons flipping between matter and antimatter

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain ...

and a nice hot cup of tea.

Simples!

Microsoft exec: No 'Plan B' despite mobile stumbles

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Save As on OS X

Hold down the Option/Alt key whilst clicking the File menu (or pull down File menu and pres Option/Alt key to get 'Save As'.

Lotus 1-2-3 turns 30: Mitch Kapor on the Google before Google

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Multiplan and Word for MS-DOS

Multiplan and the first versions of Word shared a common interface; a menu system accessed by hitting escape and then typing single-letter commands to carry out tasks. Guess they developed them on Xenix using vi as an editor, then!

Londoners can bonk their way to work without Oyster cards TODAY

Gareth Gouldstone
Holmes

Re: So, given that my cards are in my wallet

I inserted a baking foil-wrapped piece of card into the lining of my wallet and placed the Oyster on one side and the PayWave card on the other. Now I can bonk with whichever side of the wallet is appropriate for the transaction.

Apple's iOS 6 maps STILL muddle Mildura

Gareth Gouldstone
Go

Re: Big intake of breath

Unfortunately there is now an entire generation who will never have read a map and who probably have no idea where they have been nor how they got there. The nice lady (or man) said 'Turn left' and 'Turn right' and 'Destination on the left', but they have no picture in their head of where they are. Just look at the number of cars getting stuck in fords, or the lorries stuck in country lanes and you can see that people unquestioningly rely on the technology. That is not a good thing, but it does mean the technology has to work well or not at all.

iPad mini to go on sale in one month?

Gareth Gouldstone
Thumb Up

Re: To stop us all posting the usual buy/no-buy/walled garden comments...

How sensible, a scapegoat posting! You, sir/madam, are my hero

HP to take one more stab at consumer tablets

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Re: Try to find a niche, why not a "workstation tablet"?

Glad that you are involving your wife in the decision-making process, then ...

Nokia CEO: No shift from Windows Phone

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Re: Don't fracture your base

' ... Windows phone OS going forward.'

Using corporate-speak like that, no wonder it feels like Nokia are going backward

Apple Store staircase flagged as Peeping Tom black spot

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Re: Could you put ...

And some dudes enjoy other dudes in kilts!

Salesforce goes titsup, causes CRM outages worldwide

Gareth Gouldstone
Mushroom

Clouds ...

light, fluffy, seemingly insubstantial, but apply rising heat and they can do vast amounts of damage!

Amount of meat we eat will barely affect future climate change

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Re: Only one number that really matters

I haven't reproduced and yes, I shall remove myself from the planet before I become a drain on care budgets. In the meantime, any attempt to fiddle around the edges just ignores the fact we are overpopulated.

What have you done?

Gareth Gouldstone
Stop

Only one number that really matters

Seven billion is too many

BBC iPlayer to require TV licence

Gareth Gouldstone
Unhappy

"Thank F**k we don't get that much"

Yet!

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

General taxation funding the BBC ...

... would make the BBC a state organ, subject to the political whims of the current incumbents. Come the next recession, bye bye Auntie Beeb. At least the licence fee, for all it's faults, maintains a fairly safe distance between broadcaster, state and treasury.

And without having to have an (often unannounced) advert break every 6 minutes, as is increasingly the case on commercial channels, rendering them unwatchable to anyone except demented gerbils.

I wonder how long before the advertisers get wise to the fact that PVRs mean no-one needs to watch adverts, so they pull their business, and the commercial channels all collapse.

Trojan targets Mac's built-in security defences

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

Original Source

Just make sure you install flash from Adobe, not some dodgy site, Simples!

Oh, and install a virus checker for the other 3 possible threats.

Don't bother with that degree, say IT pros

Gareth Gouldstone
Unhappy

I wonder if HR people spot the irony ...

in using such a de-humanising term as 'human resources' when they mean 'people' or 'personnel' ?

RM flogging or axing units in painful shake-up

Gareth Gouldstone

80186, in fact

and built-in networking and a very large 960Mb of user RAM. Oddly enough, it also had a fore-runner of USB in the form of PicoNet, which could daisy-chain peripherals and interfaces off a single RJ45 (i think) serial port.

Microsoft cloud evaporated by one busted file

Gareth Gouldstone
Unhappy

Why do they call it a cloud?

'cos it's light and fluffy and insubstantial, I guess

Apple's cloudy music streamer won't stream music

Gareth Gouldstone

Multiple devices?

As I understand it, it ensures that your Mac, PC, iPod, IPhone are all synced without physically having to do it yourself. As a bonus, you get a backup of your stuff on iCloud in case of nasty accidents/theft of your device(s).

Gareth Gouldstone
Happy

RTFM - Apple do not mention streaming

As I wrote in an earlier comment,

" This is the largest misconception about iCloud.

It is all about SYNCing, nothing to do with STREAMing. All iCloud does is ensure all your iDevices (including Macs and PCs) are transparently synchronised. This may include your music, which does not have to be uploaded to iCloud if iTunes Match has a copy of all your tracks. If not, then only those non-matched tracks are uploaded, but ONLY for the purpose of re-synching back to other devices, not for streaming.

They want you to store data and use apps locally, otherwise you would not buy high-capacity iPhones etc, and would not pay for local apps.

To summarise, iCloud keeps your local off-line world in sync; it is not about the on-line use of data or applications."

HP confirms faster, paler TouchPad tablet

Gareth Gouldstone

Interesting comparison ...

http://www.cultofmac.com/what-tablets-looked-like-before-the-ipad-proves-how-revolutionary-apples-tablet-really-was/109373

Piles of unshiftable HP fondle-slabs choke Best Buy

Gareth Gouldstone
Facepalm

How do you think the police caught them?

They brought them back for a refund ...

Page: