Posts by Kevin McMurtrie

Probably right

JavaScript has become fragmented by derivative languages that are transcoded into JavaScript. If you look into the corporate source repos, you find very little authentic JavaScript.

Python seems to be the new duct tape of the world. Despite it being an excellent scripting language, this is an unhealthy popularity that's going to give it a the same junk code reputation that PHP and Java have.

supporting bandwidth-intensive industries like...

Missed one: Brute-force attacks

Harden the F up

Being in a big city doesn't seem to be much of a defense against everything trying to kill you in Australia.

Used for job interviews too

This crap happens in job interviews too. You only have to read the terms and waivers to know how much of snake oil marketing trick these services are. I can't imagine how angry students would be to have this garbage suddenly dumped on them after months of studying.

At least in the job interviews, I can decline and not have wasted too much of my life.

Good work for game devs, if they don't vanish

The games will need a software update every time the Chinese Government changes the official record historical events.

A new iPhone meaning for "jailbreak

Take 50 photos of family kids playing. Find that they're all blurry and delete them. Get arrested by FBI because AI found illegal content and you deleted both their evidence and your defense.

Self defense?

My experience with Cisco's RV series is that they barely work. Hackers will need to deal with constant crashes, stalling, and users power cycling the device.

The feedback the same

Packet loss and latency. Those are the two feedback values you have for tuning. Packet loss is a costly value to probe. Both values have highly dynamic optimal values.

TCP, QUIC, and home-brew UDP layers can't improve what little data there is to work with.

Fixing bloated JS and giving your marketing department rabies shots could improve HTTP performance by 90x.

Translations

"AI acceleration engine" -> Deeply invasive behavioral monitoring and manipulation

"most layers of hardware security" -> Spyware can't be disabled with ADB

"Material You" -> Your life is our product

"upgraded the rear camera system" -> The camera lump grows like cancer but still no room for a headphone jack or modern quantities of storage.

Apple ][

It always amused me that the Apple ][ series came in beige but the HiRes mode could only produce black, white, purple, green, orange, and cyan. Adding to that, selecting purple/green or orange/cyan was at the byte level so they could not be blended. Single pixels always produced a color.

Having an Apple ][ show a picture of itself required some creative coloring and shading.

Infrastructure is tiny

The really big mass-murders and riots are brain hacks. They always have been and technology makes them even easier. It's going to take a longer time for infrastructure hacks to catch up.

Proof of Concept?

I'll be excited when GCP cleans up.

10 microwatts per square cm

This is down in the territory of low-light solar cells (the brown ones on calculators) and lithium button cells that will outlast the clothing. I'm betting a solar cell or button cell survives more trips through the washer.

Took immediate action

But Amazon doesn't care if bots keep generating new stores and new brands for the same junk. It's a big reason for me never looking for anything on that site. Amazon shows hundreds of top-rated search results for the same defective products being dumped into the only US store that would dare sell them.

Version 6

IPv6 is already quite popular in use, but not at many cloud vendors. Cloud vendors have been hoarding IPv4 addresses and it's in their best interest that you feel like you need one. It's also wrong to look at your workplace's network or Docker and assume that their IPv6 isn't working. Except for some old telcos that never upgraded past DSL, most US Internet connections are IPv6.

Cellular 6G is completely dead until it can find a reason to exist. It's current ideas expand upon all the features of 5G that are proving to be unpopular and unpractical. A mmWave access point every 100 meters, an edge compute datacenter every 1km, and a world of unified AI with perfect connectivity? Maybe someday, but not with this tech.

Radio bands

Radio compatibility is a problem on most midrange Chinese phones. They do work outside of China and India but cellular performance is awful.

Are old plates still solid?

I'd think that a battery maker would use plates that last no longer than the electrode surface. Anything more would be extra weight. I'd also expect battery technology to be making so many small and rapid changes that standardized recycling is difficult.

Streamlining the chemical process is probably a better bet.

Perfect format

Baseball caps with loud logos are already used to indicate strong beliefs in an alternate reality.

How wide?

The NSString documentation isn't clear on what parts of the printf spec it supports. If it supports padding to 2000000000 characters, it just might do some damage.

(Browsing through code samples reminds me that dropping MacOS development from my career because of Objective C was a good call)

On the surface...

Kirk: Everyone! Get to, work! Stop staring at, your flip-phones.

Kirk: Kirk to Scotty, uninstall everyone's apps.

Scotty: File a ticket

Kirk: Now!

Scotty: These are critical components and there's a process. I could have this done next sprint if the Warp Coils OKRs are allowed to slip a wee bit.

Kirk: Nevermind, Scotty. Offboard deceased Red Shirts 5486 and 75385. Bones, prepare a post-mortem.

Scotty: File a ticket.

Not Now John

Maybe other songs are for sale?

Other options

Wouldn't it be easier to move the pillar airbags? They were nice and small until they became giant C-beams. Even carbon fiber would solve the weight/strength/size problem with less cost than simulated invisibility.

Control or Alt

The ONE thing I hate about Linux UIs is using the Control key for standard shortcuts. You have terminal and app windows open at the same time. In the terminal, Control-c kills and Alt-c copies. In the email app, Control-c copies and Alt-c opens the carbon-copy field. It drives me mad that there's no consistent shortcuts. You can try remapping tricks in the windowing manager but apps ignore them.

Another questionable battery announcement

Some problems here.

Fast charging already has multiple phases to match the battery state. This is nothing new. You can't fast charge without it unless enormous fires are acceptable.

High capacity Lithium Ion batteries hardly conduct well enough for 10 minute charging when new. Resistance goes up with age.

The final stage of charge is tricky. After about 70% charge, continuing requires a carefully controlled over-voltage. As the battery ages, different parts of the battery are in different stages following the fast charge. Forcing that last 30% quickly isn't a good idea.