Posts by DropBear 4735 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Mar 2013
Only true in the world of no economic limitations where "brain + experience + knowledge" can be had at lower prices than more hardware. Recently, this has not been the case in this dimension.
Original point aside, I'm frankly not amused by the implication that having 1000x faster hardware than, say, a decade ago but 100x slower software is a-ok, because building the machines was cheaper than writing the software properly - and hey, it runs 10x faster, woohoo! Guess what - it's nowhere in the same bloody universe as "ok".
Ok so deciding once and for all exactly how "quantum" the machine is looks like a hard job, and I even get that we're not quite sure exactly what sort of thing it might be good at. But from a purely pragmatical point of view evaluating its usefulness is not hard at all - take a Hard Problem you're interested in, get the best conventional hardware you can, put it side by side with the D-wave kit and see which gives you more answers per second, by how much, and how accurate / optimal each is. That's it! If you really observe 35000 answers from one while a single one from the other, it really is faster, quantum or not - unless it's 35000 time more expensive too, it's a win. If not, we're just playing "The emperor's new clothes" all over again...
I think it would be good if cinemas were forced to install these jammers and turn them on during screenings...
Absolutely, and we could mandate the hall be lined with a fully shielding Faraday-cage, so the jammer's signal would not get out to bother anybody else. ...oh wait...
It's not that different on non-mobile either, you know - especially on "multiplayer" games, and as we all know no game can be cool these days without some form of that. Would you believe there's a certain much-awaited-space-sim-in-development where a single ship can cost (potentially way-) upwards of $100? You'd better make the most of it too, 'cause when it gets blown to bits by Joe Friendly Pirate it's gone. Unless you purchased periodic insurance for it, of course - you have, haven't you? Which (naturally) insures only your basic model - any extra equipment you had you need to buy again and forget about your cargo.
Now of course, you'll allegedly be able to pay for most of that with in-game currency as well - I just hope you have no life or job, and you like to grind (hard to get into specifics obviously since the game is not actually out yet - but that is how these things tends to work...). Or you could just pay for it, obviously. Sadly, this "we know you paid for the game but please keep paying us through the nose anyway" issue is not mobile-specific at all...
Exactly - if one wishes to access an OAuth-based service from a mobile app, what else is one expected to do? This is not a failure on the developer's side, it's just the way authentication works - how do you expect to let an app to authenticate itself to an API but not store any of the secret involved somewhere in its code? The only way around that would be to either a) run your own server that keeps tokens on your app's behalf, into which users have to log in with individual credentials or b) use an API that allows purely credential-based client login without an app key (obviously not in your control in the case of a 3rd party service, also it would imply that the user has to disclose his main credentials to the app, which is against the whole point of OAuth - letting someone do things on your behalf without having to give them your 'main keys').
What the paper seems to try to say instead is that OAuth / token based authentication is not a good fit for mobile apps (as opposed to server-side code), but that's hardly as catchy as "developers are idiots" is it?
I cannot however argue with those who are lapping up the gravy. I would. It's those who are pouring it that are to blame.
Except a mature ecosystem of 'gravy-up-lappers' (eugh...) is an organism of its own, with its very own survival instinct, and will do whatever needs to be done to make sure those pouring the gravy keep doing so.
Well, yes, as much as I'm not a fan of "back in my day" musings I have to concede things do change, and mostly not for the better at all. I clearly remember Thunderbyte Antivirus disinfecting test-files I infected on purpose for study, returning a file that was binary-identical to the original, except the zeroed-out part at the end where the virus had been; repeating the experiment after creating a "clean state" database first, the disinfected file was an exact copy of the original even in size.
Exercise for the reader: compare and contrast with current state-of-the-art "Just deleted Windows, I'm sure you don't mind?" approach...
I'd add as a hallmark of boffinry the ability to not merely know but thoroughly, deeply understand their chosen field, in the "grok it" sense - including awareness of the potential implications and consequences - where other people tend to 'know' the same field more in the sense of 'hopefully being aware of and able to recite the relevant knowledge'.
No. By this test, people from _any_ other culture than your own fail to pass, and that makes your test invalid as a measure of being human. On the other hand, since it's a verbal / written communication, you would indeed be entitled to expect better-than-reasonable command of the common (likely English) language used in the test - so none of these "what you mean by that / sorry I'm Ukrainian" excuses should be admissible. Basically, language should not be used as an excuse impeding free communication of thought - and indeed what the testers should try to do is ascertain that their partner does actually have some of their own.
You know what - here's a tip for free for future testers: "Do you think everybody should learn how to code? Either way, make your argument in no less than five sentences. Go!"
...but if this thing has GPS as I suspect it just might, I would have instructed it to retrace its path _exactly_ if it loses contact until contact is regained. Chances seem good it can relatively safely pass again where it has passed once already...
They never change...
I guess we're down to the "you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs" and "you can't handle the truth" level - and it seems those operating there cannot conceivably be convinced by any means that any truth might exist other than their own. Somehow I don't think they'd feel flattered if one told them the word for uncritical and irrational dedication is "fanatism"...
I've never understood this attitude that it's somehow desirable to overpay for your gadgetry.
It's a consequence of the thoroughly delusional "something I pay for is always better quality than something free, and the more I have to pay for it the better it gets" mindset. Don't bother arguing with such people, just nod approvingly and back away slowly and carefully.
A series of unfortunate accidents will befall any location sporting a suitable antenna dish.
Just how, pray tell, are you planning to keep a consumer dish oriented at a bunch of low-orbit satellites whizzing over the sky in a matter of minutes?
These are not, AFAICT, SatPhones like Iridium. More like the pirate TV dishes favored in some US-allied countries in the middle east.
You might have heard TV satellites identified by their position as "XY.Z degrees east". Perhaps that's possible at all because they are, you know, geostationary, which the Google sats have been explicitly declared in the article not to be...?
Or perhaps you should have the COMMON SENSE...
"If you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear" much? The thing is, you do not know today what might come back and bite you tomorrow. Sure, not sharing anything gets around that (works fine for me) but it sort of throws out the baby with the bathwater, you know...
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