Posts by jake

Re: Never using Facebook

Are you similarly proud of not shitting on your kitchen floor?

_{When I were a lad, folks weren't proud of common sense ...}

Re: NETIZEN IN READER 'RIOT' STORM

You honestly can't see where personal opinion affects the way Judges interpret Law?

I'm glad I'm not afflicted by that kind of myopia.

Re: Innocent until proven guilty

Define "normal people".

Re: Back to the roots

"Could that be the end of Facebook"

Don't be daft. Facebook could drop out of Oz completely and not see a blip in their profits. Nor their prophets, both the employed ones and the volunteers.

" and boom of self-hosted personal blogs in Australia?"

Of course not. That would be hard, and people would have to actually learn something.

Re: "Fewer reasons to go on Facebook"

Well, no, of course not. The phrase was employed for rhetorical effect, I'm sure.

"I think Java will go the same way as Cobol."

I seriously doubt it. COBOL is still important (many would say vital!) some sixty-odd years after making it's debut. Java, at less than half that age, not so much.

Re: Maybe there wouldn't be a shortage of kids going into coding

Maybe if they encouraged the kids who are interested in the subject and stopped trying to force it on all and sundry?

In my experience, the kids who are interested in it are disgusted at being held back by their peers who have no interest in the subject matter whatsoever.

The "no kid left behind" concept is ruining an entire generation. Fact is, we are NOT all the same, and we are NOT all capable of the same work.

Re: Interesting

The problem is marketing and management want coding to be inexpensive. So easy, in fact, that kids can be taught to program by a teacher with a certificate to teach general education.

Unfortunately for them, computers are the single most complex tool HomoSap has managed to invent. They are inherently difficult to program. And there is no easy way around that ... regardless of language.

Slight correction, Mk II: 1/4 of Scottish schools are CURRENTLY using <this approved Linux distro> which includes <this FREE product> by default - anyone see where I'm going with this?

_{Just an educated guess ... can anyone confirm or deny?}

Re: If people weren't paying for it before...

If there is any interest in the product it'll happen quickly.

If it hasn't been forked already ...

Re: English like code ?

It is very easy to write bad COBOL (or Fortran) in just about any of the modern languages.

Re: But Latin's not weird.

That's an implementation error, not a language error.

Re: DarkBasic

The problem with BASIC is that if it's your first language, you spend the rest of your programming career fighting what you learned from it.

Re: choices that have been around since before Pascal

"Ah, so you didn't teach her Perl then."

She discovered perl on her own. Back in early 1988 she was subscribed to comp.sources.unix and read Larry's first post on the subject. She emailed me and suggested that it would be fun to join in from the beginning. I agreed, and so we learned it together.

Ignoring the mystique and FUD surrounding perl, after all these years it's still a fun and useful language that runs on damned near everything. Recommended.

But Latin's not weird.

C++, on the other hand ...

Re: choices that have been around since before Pascal

I don't know about you, but I spoke to my kid in English right from the git-go, not the cut-down version some people call "baby talk". As a result, she learned to speak, read and write proper English much earlier than her peers. Go figure.

When the time came, I extended the concept to programming languages. It seems to have worked.

Re: Eight years and this is the first I've heard of it??

I've heard of it, and thought it might be useful to somebody a dozen or so years ago (I can't remember who, what or why), but I've never actually seen it used anywhere.

Re: English like code ?

Seconded.

As a perk, you'll never be out of work, unlike all the coders who only learn whatever language is popular at the moment.

Both senses of the word are derived from the Latin "Primus", meaning "of the first rank, chief, or principal" ... The reasoning behind naming the Church boss is obvious. Ihe Human version comes from the rather Victorian concept that humans are the highest order of mammals.

Presumably the people bitching about the Facebook AI are racists who don't think that black people can be first at anything, much less a higher order animal.

Re: No "I" in this AI

Insemination.

About four years ago my large animal Vet came in with a funny bit of advertising. This guy's in his second career, he became a Vet after 25 years as a DBA working for IBM. He knows I'm a computer guy, and thought I'd be amused. The ad was for a large animal veterinary practice management software package "NOW WITH AI!!!"

The Vet was laughing, and wondered how many times the company in question got Vets inquiring about their new Artificial Insemination package. Without a pause, I dialed the 800 number ... the answer was over 80% of calls! The guy on the other end wasn't amused when I suggested they fire their marketing genius and hire an AI expert ...

Re: Groudhog Day at Fakebook

That's how DevOps works, isn't it?

Re: Shame to feckbook!

Presumably the people who are shocked over this would give up Facebook entirely if the AI had used "hominids" instead of primates ... and would have declared open war if it had instead chosen "Great Apes".

Re: It kind of does

"It costs Spring nothing to deny on spurious grounds"

On the contrary, it has cost them at least one sale, and probably many other potential sales based on bad publicity. For a small company, where margins are thin, that might be enough to tip them into insolvency.

"permitting something that breaches a bogus, inadmissible but nevertheless approved trademark"

The trademarks in question are not bogus, nor are they inadmissible. They are legal and above board. This is not in question. What IS in question is how Spring has decided that one portion of said trademark is somehow the whole, "IBM" is a trademark. However, not even IBM's landsharks would consider suing Intel, Brother and Mitsubishi if they used their initial letter as a portion of their trademark and copyright package.

Re: Trademark should not have been granted

Again, re-read the article. The whole issue is that Spring has no clue, and is jumping to conclusions based on ignorance of the law surrounding copyright.

Affinity is perfectly clear about what they expect with regard to third parties using their clients legal copyright and trademarks. Spring has over-reacted.

Re: "The Greek alphabet is currently protected legally"

Where, pray tell, do you plan on doing that? How much will it cost, who needs to be bribed (and how much to stay bribed?). How do you plan on benefiting?

Please, share your business plan!

Re: Erase them from the Internet

I'm sure they are mortified, and shaking in their boots that others will emulate you.

How about doing something useful? Block this lot:

dig TXT +short _netblocks{,2,3}.google.com | tr ' ' '\n' | grep '^ip'

_{Hey, it's a start!}

Re: We could not Trademark Short Letter Combinations

What group was that? I'm curious.

Also, how long has IBM been considered a trademark in Blighty?

Re: Trademark should not have been granted

The company wasn't granted any trademarks at all. RTFA again.

Can nobody around here read for content anymore?

Re: The Greek alphabet is currently protected legally by the Affinity Client Services.

Doe snot.

Re: Catherine

We did that one already. But thanks for playing.

Re: Crazy

"There is definitely a need to review and remove all the stupid patents and trademarks"

This is true. The USPTO is in serious need of repair, for a LOT of reasons.

"so that the rest of the world can get on with its business."

Perhaps, if your business involves getting Spring to print t-shirts for you. May I suggest an alternative vendor for your shirts? There is nothing in Law stopping you from getting them printed, just in Spring's brain-dead handling of the issue.

Re: To someone from UK

I think someone from the UK should re-read TFA, this time for content.

So get back at 'em.

Block go ogle (and the rest of alphagoo). Works for me :-)

Re: Try one of those Cyrillic 'e's

Good luck with that!

Can't even convince the computer illiterate around here that"jake" and "Jake" are two completely different handles!

Re: We need an Alpha wolf

Oh, gawd/ess ... don't bring the furries into it. We've (TINW) got enough problems around here.

Re: Oi - Merkins

We did that one already. But thanks for playing.