Posts by TheGreatCabbage

Kotlin

I see nobody's mentioned that Kotlin can compile to WebAssembly (in addition to Java bytecode, native binaries and JS).

Kotlin is a beautiful language and hopefully WebAssembly will help it to gain traction outside the Android world.

"Don't be evil"

Google's draconian management of the Play Store is far worse than just this.

Your entire company can be permanently banned, with no recourse, because an employee has a friend who got their developer account banned.

Since Google is very quick to hand out bans for innocent developers, this is a relatively common occurrence.

Google refuses to provide a channel with which to make a meaningful appeal, and if you create a new account it will be banned (but only after they take your money, of course).

Google has created an environment where you cannot risk collaborating with other developers because it could permanently destroy your career along with your company. The first screening process for any Android development job will soon be, "do you know anyone whose developer account was banned?"

Frankly, it's hard to believe but you'll find plenty of evidence on the r/androiddev subreddit. Google has literally killed off at least several small businesses along with many innocent independent developers.

Faster than light not needed?

470 light years might be achievable in a human lifetime when we have a method of propulsion which uses very little fuel.

The idea that we cannot travel more than 1 light year in 1 year is based on the reference frame of an observer on Earth. When you accelerate at 'g'* it only takes a couple of years to be pushing relativistic speeds, and then the distance that you need to travel actually contracts (in the reference frame of the spacecraft).

I haven't made any calculations, but perhaps it would be possible to travel that distance within the lifetime of the pilots, even though us Earthlings would measure the time as thousands of years.

* 'g', the acceleration at the surface of the Earth, is a natural choice because it causes the pilots to feel exactly as though they're standing on Earth and avoids some of the health issues with microgravity. One of the biggest limits on piloted space travel is that a prolonged acceleration of much more than 'g' may not be feasible for health reasons.

POS?

"A POS at a Tesco store within kitten-flinging distance of Vulture Central was spotted giving itself a vigourous rubdown with CHKDSK last year."

I read POS as "piece of s***" and it made enough sense that I barely remembered the correct acronym from higher up the page :P

I'd like a server to handle just a few hundred simple requests per day, so this seems great for the job.

Anything would be better than the depressing number of slow WebView-wrapper "apps", which even large companies like BT develop.

My university has one and it's so bad that I ended up writing my own for displaying your timetable, which is literally 5 seconds faster to launch and has a load of extra features to boot.

It's getting quite exciting with upcoming 7nm Ryzen CPUs, 7nm Snapdragons and now Samsung's plans for 3nm processes!

Another standalone headset which can't run intensive games?

I can't believe Oculus hasn't released a true successor to the Rift after more than 2 years, leaving the true VR enthusiasts - the people who actually funded their initial enterprise - with no upgrade path except the HTC Vive Pro...

Personally, I'm happy with Windows Mixed Reality and I'm quite hopeful that 2nd generation WMR headsets will thoroughly leave Oculus in the dust.

As a Brit (from Yorkshire, specifically) the word "Pie" evokes thoughts of savoury dishes like pork pies, chicken pie, etc.

Is it just me? It seems like a more appropriate name could've been chosen, although I'll admit that I can't think of one off the top of my head.

They can do what they want, but I'm going to be laughing when they botch a Windows update :P

I've had zero success with the snapshots, the emulator always boots into a frozen state and requires a forced reboot. The overall process takes longer than a cold boot, but I hope it will work for me soon.

Also, a warning for Windows users: don't use Hyper-V if you're overclocking. When I enabled Hyper-V it made Windows inoperable, and after several hours of troubleshooting (even safe mode was broken) I finally tracked down the cause of the problem.

Had no issues on 2 machines, but I know 1 person who got this issue and it sounds like someone else has too.

Alt-tab...?

Are they removing the alt-tab of Android, in other words the double-tap of the app switcher button?

It took them so long to add it in the first place, and it's one of the most important shortcuts for me.

"Sony plans to sell Aibo outside Japan real soon now."

"Real soon now"? I thought this was a British website :P

While it will certainly suit some people, the Oculus Go seems a bit of a gimmick at that price. For £200 you can get a barely used WMR headset from ebay, which will run SteamVR games and has 2 controllers. It's also got a great resolution, but admittedly the optics will be worse than the Go.

I just couldn't justify buying the Go for that price, given that it's so limited in purpose. It seems like something that will be rarely used after the first few weeks.

It's a pity people don't mention Kubuntu much. Personally, I've never found a desktop environment to beat Plasma 5, and I think a lot of potential Linux users are turned away when they take a look at Ubuntu with Unity or Gnome.

How many people actually use Windows Phone at the moment? About 1k, 10k, 100k?

(Genuine curiosity.)

If Apple starts saving money by using cheaper chips, their products will get so much cheaper, right? ...Right?