Posts by David Hicks
1079 posts • joined Tuesday 22nd April 2008 12:44 GMT
Posted in Review: Raspberry Pi
Re: RE:Memory (and firefox)
It's not just firefox that has the large footprint but.... yeah, it's pretty poor. I'm not sure whether you ought to blame firefox or the legions of web developers who no longer consider footprint or performance to be their problem, but either way it's ridiculous that I can have three tabs open and be using half a GB of RAM for the browser alone.
Who's with me for the native/local code revolution?
Posted in Review: Raspberry Pi
RE:Memory
"I know that software bloat is the in thing these days, but how can 256MB of memory constrain *any* decent programmer?"
This isn't about any decent programmer being constrained, this is about the platform being limited. Big difference. Your implied sniping at the post you reply to is out of place.
If you're trying to run a modern desktop OS, that doesn't really leave you very much at all. Running firefox and multiple tabs on top, and trying to view webpages full of images and scripts, you're going to start swapping like crazy, which isn't going to be fun with an SD card.
I agree that if you set out specifically to tune an OS to the device (and stay away from script-heavy websites) then you could acheive much more, but this is not what is happening, people are running a full desktop stack.
Posted in Review: Raspberry Pi
Re: Waiting to pre-order...
As the other poster said - you have a pc you're posting this from? Then you have a platform you can program already. Install python, or a C compiler, Java SDK, or whatever runtime you want (these are all available free for Linux, Mac and Windows) , find an IDE you like or even just a text editor, then just go for it.
Pi is an interesting device for it's size and cost, but you don't *need* a new machine to code with.
Posted in Alain de Botton wants better online smut
WTF?
"“pornography, like alcohol and drugs, weakens our ability to endure the kinds of suffering that are necessary for us to direct our lives properly."
I think he must be doing it wrong. All of it.
Essential for modern websites?
Strange how, when someone like me puts a cookie blocker on their browsers, most things continue to work just fine without them.
Sorry if it spoils your revenue model, but I'm not keeping cookies around just because you think your site needs them. It most likely doesn't.
Posted in 75,000 Raspberry Pi baked before August
Re: not really the same thing
I guess it saves on silicon, and therefore on price. People who want the more advanced stuff like network boot will just have to put a u-boot image on the sd card instead of a kernel I guess.
Posted in 75,000 Raspberry Pi baked before August
Re: not really the same thing
If you wanted multiple ethernet cards wouldn't you just add them on USB?
Of course you'd need a hub. You'd be able to add more using the GPIO pins too, as they are often used for connecting sata or ethernet controllers on other boards.
I am slightly disappointed at the weird bootloader stuff they do, when the nice, open, u-boot is out there, but I suppose you can't have everything.
Re: Ilgaz - Nobody blames thieves
Nobody blames the theives because they removed linux *before* piracy was even possible.
George Hotz demo'd a proof of concept hack that required interfering with the hardware to make it 'glitch', under PS3 Linux. There was no piracy at that point. Sony removed linux, then the firmware *without* linux was cracked and piracy enabled.
People like you get flamed because you have your facts and your timeline wrong.
'Hacking' was an extremely flimsy excuse for removing the capability, not a good reason at all.
Posted in Best and the Rest: ARM Mini PCs
Re: Overlooking a lot of devices
Re sheevaplug - I'm assuming they leave it out because it has no display capability, unless you add-on a USB graphics adaptor, which people have varying amounts of luck with. The sheevaplug is a great little machine, but it's made for headless operation really.
Posted in Best and the Rest: ARM Mini PCs
Been eyeing up the slice for a while
But there were various graphics or video decoding related issues, IIRC. Despite the power, it can't yet do 1080p video due to the driver for the hardware decoder not being functional at present. Maybe this has been addressed recently.
Also yes, not cheap.
I wonder if it was them?
A couple of years ago I remember a few friends had 'like'd something, some sort of a laptop that was claimed to be a design masterpiece or next gen or something. So I clicked it, and tried to click some or other facebook button to take me away again, but they'd managed to force an overlay onto the page somehow, and next thing I knew I had spammed all my friends with the useless link too.
Quite underhand, and I guess a good way to harvest people's info, as the thing spread like a virus.
So what do I get if I want something smaller?
As a fan of slipping my phone into the front pocket of my jeans, which is the best smartphone for me?
The big screens are all very pretty, but it's almost a different class of device to the trouser-able phones I'm used to.
Difficulty - no SOny, MS or Apple.
Posted in Nokia: 'hybrid' mobiles will save us
Re: Who's in charge?
Regents Street in London had a Nokia store last time I was there, but a quick Google tells me that was du to close down in early 2010.
I must have gone in about that time. It was a mess of hundreds of similar models, none of which had all the features you wanted. Other than the N900, which I still have (didn't buy from them though! ebay... )
Re: @David Hicks
@AC
"The lawyer for their side tried to claim that the film was a documentary, and as such the makers were allowed to use 'small segments for the purposes of criticism / review'"
And if that was genuinely found to be the case, that they had used small excerpts for the purposes of criticism, then I would support them over you. Some uses should be protected, commercial or otherwise, regardless of your objections.
Re: Britain's IP laws...... We are all Criminals
"If the fair use convention applied in the UK, then said company would have been able to shrug their shoulders at me and go 'that's too bad'."
How?
Fair use laws in the US are broadly there so that consumers can make backups of works they have bought, and format shift them, and so that small snippets and segments can be used for purposes of criticism/review. Oh, and so libraries can exist, and the occasional educational exemption on photocopying the odd page.
Please explain how fair-use laws would allow use of your music in a movie without payment. I genuinely don't see it and suspect you misunderstood your own standing. As far as I can tell you're spouting nonsense. Lawsuits go on in the US for this sort of thing ALL the time.
Re: Windows just isn't cool or desirable
Oh dear! Someone doesn't understand the smartphone market at all.
To you and me features and function may be king, but to everyone else?
Of *course* it's a fashion accessory! Mobiles (well, the ones that want to sell in huge quantities) have been primarily a fashion accessory since the late 90s. You need the right one, and the right one is an iPhone if you're an independent thinker with good taste, or Android if you're a free-thinking non-conformist! If you don't get either of these then clearly your independent or free-thinking nature hasn't led you in the right direction, that being the one everyone else has moved in.
That said, MS and Winphone can suck my appendages, I'll not be buying one.
Re: Britain's IP laws...... We are all Criminals
Of course it makes a difference, if it lasts a million years then people who copy after a reasonable amount of time are open to both private and public legal repercussions. Even if it only ever happens to a minority of people, the possibility is still there.
Laws that can't be enforced are passed all the time. They're used to screw people that come to the authorities' attention for other reasons.
Re: About bliddy time
Agreed here too. Took A-levels in 95 and 96, practicing on past papers got harder the further back you went. Same with GCSE's two years prior.
Given that everyone I know that's involved in education laments falling standards, that the universities often go on records saying that standards are falling, yet somehow (!?) average grades just keep getting better and better... yeah, we have a problem.
It's an irritation to me that every time people try to discuss this when the results come out, they get shouted down as just wanting to belittle the hard work that's gone in to it all and puff themselves up with declarations about how hard their personal challenge was. It's really not the case at all. My personal challenge wasn't all that hard back then and it sounds like it would be even easier now.
Re: Protectionism fail
"Does the government foresee procurement panels being forced to choose a crappier or more expensive service because it comes from a UK supplier?"
Perhaps they forsee doing things sensibly - forcing procurement panels to let smaller businesses in the door to pitch/demo to them, instead of just handing it straight over to the usual suspects, which is the problem it's trying to address.
I'm sorry if this would disadvantage you, but strictly speaking - you're part of the problem.
It's always seemed a shame
That British taxpayers money is spent on contracts awarded to giant multinationals, who take the lions share as profit and outsource the work to India. The money mostly goes to the US, the employment opportunities mostly to India.
It seems first-order common sense to try and keep government spending within the country wherever possible.
Posted in Punters want BBC iPlayer in TVs, not 3D
So... PVR functions, like a lot of TVs already have?
Mine (Samsung Plasma) offers to format any hard drive you plug in to use for PVR purposes. It wasn't a pushed or advertised feature, just something I found out later it could do, like playing mkv's over the network.
Of course real iPlayer and 4oD integration would be better. Be surprised if there's not an app of some sort for that for newer ones.
Posted in Global chocolate crisis looms
Hmm, advertising?
Is it a coincidence that this year marks the first release of australian grown and processed chocolate? Stir up a bit of trouble and doubt about your less well developed rivals, hoping to trigger massive investment in the Australian chocolate industry?
Me, cynical?
Turnbull may be the better politican (compared to Abbott)
But I do wonder why the liberals have to pursue this contrarian agenda to keep Australia in the dark ages. Even if NBN capacity isn't needed right this second, it seems incredibly short sighted to try to kill a project that prepares the country for the future.
Obviously you want to keep expenses under control, but there are much worse things tht governments spend far more money on, than the NBN.
Silly rabbits...
You want my skills, you pay my price. My price will go down if nobody is willing to pay me. If they are, chances are you're trying to get scarce, valuable skills at a low-ball figure.
Your alternative, and I know this is unheard of in business these days, is to take a current employee with a related skill set and offer them training. Then everyone wins. Of course the problem here is that if you're not paying them market rate then they'll leave afterwards too.
So basically, stop being a cheapskate, or if the money really isn't there to pay for these skills then you're going to have to live without them.
Re: Oh right DDT resistance
The point is that there are better ways to deal with the problem now, and that DDT is actually still in use where it is the best solution and doesn't pose an environmental hazard.
That's why I called 'troll', and I was right.
Re: Oh right
WOW! A DDT Troll on the register! I thought you guys were extinct!
You know mosquitos developed resistance to that, right?
Posted in Game of Thrones Blu-ray disc set
Oh, also -
Anyone else reckon that five books of 'Winter is coming!' followed by apparently a single one that deals with it, after build-up from word one, is a bit unlikely?
I forsee more than the proposed two more books in this series, and a very, very long wait for completion.
Re: Colour and contrast are not just for "ooh, look at the shiny thing"
I'm pretty sure there was some sort of fuss about websites a few years back, someone in the UK government was pretty sure that accessibility laws applied to them somehow.
Posted in Game of Thrones Blu-ray disc set
Definitely brilliant so far
But I must admit I wonder how the series is going to follow the books - the later ones spread the story so wide, following so many different characters, that progress is only made in the tiniest of steps.
I love the books but I find that one of the two flaws, that they don't progress apace. The other is that the story is unfinished and the bugger only releases one every five years... Still, that leaves him another four or so before the telly catches up with the novels.
Re: You can take it with you...
No, you can't.
Some (not many) software guys seem to have this misguided opinion that they hold the rights to stuff they produce under contract. This is incorrect unless you have some incredibly permissive contract.. Stuff produced on company time, with company equipment, is theirs once produced, not yours.
Anyone that's worked with them
Not that the individuals are necessarily stupid, or terrible at what they do, but there are systemic problems. I worked with Indian folk in the UK. One of them told me that - "The top flight people, they all go to the US for the money. The rest of the good people come to Europe for a little less money. What's left is, well, what's left."
So they don't have a good starting point there, they do have a cultural bias to agree with anything you say (do you have the skills for that? do you understand what I'm asking?) even if it's not true, there is a language barrier, there is a massive churn of staff and frankly, when looking at the results, you tend to get either nothing at all or just plain crap.
Re: austerity
No, it's not the same logic at all.
The public sector is huge and expensive and needs trimming. There is the same problem, you need to do it without depressing the economy further. However 'sending all the money abroad' and 'not spending as much on the public sector' are different phenomena. The hope with the latter is that the tax burden eventually falls (or doesn't have to rise), which stimulates the economy by not taking the money out of the public's pockets in the first place.
Re: False economy
Oh I see, you disagree with the concept of free markets. That's not what I was talking about.
I do think it's wrong to restict access to consumers and workforces, I don't think it's wrong to have a preference to spend taxpayer money locally. These are different things.
False Economy
The problem is the way this is done to budget.
You get the cheapest price from an outsourcing agreement, but that totally neglects the wider effects that the price -
Goes out of the UK econonomy
Doesn't take into account anything that would come back in taxes if kept in the UK
Could be, but now isn't, stimulating economic growth.
Now I know that if the government said "UK Only" then they'd get in trouble with various UN trade agencies and the EU, but IMHO these agreements need to be revised. I agree with free trade as a principle, particularly as it applies to the private sector, I just can't agree with sending masses of tax money out of the country when there's so much unemployment at home.
Re: So do people actually scan these things?
A phone number is usually quite large, and not in a consistent format or size. A QR code is a funny looking square of black on white. Much easier to over-stick than unknown shape, unknown colour, unknown background phone numbers.
It probably won't ever be a big thing (it takes effort) but it could be done pretty easily.
Re: So do people actually scan these things?
Heh, haven't been to b3ta for a while, pretty sure I will have stolen the idea from somewhere though, it's just the way of the world these days!
So do people actually scan these things?
I've noticed them popping up in ads all over the place recently, but I've never seen anyone actually use one.
It also opens up the possibility of hard to detect advertising redirection or trolling. Overpaste the QR of your choice with a sticker containing either competitor information, or a link to a shock site... It's only a matter of time.
The Diprotodon...
... is most often described as something like a grumpy-looking Wombat the size of a Humvee.
I think that would be great!
Also can we bring back the Thylacine?
Wrong end of the stick?
It's not that he has to name names, it's that he's threatening to, as part of his defence.
Which he should, IMHO, as it would be funny to watch the cockroaches scurry out of the light when it turns out many of those that are pushing the laws he's facing have actually used his service.
I don't say this because I support piracy, I say this because I support exposing hypocrisy.
The guy seems like an arse
But at least he is an arse through and through, no pretension. Look at ma guns, cars, houses and babes! Unlike politicos, who hide the fact that they are enormous buttholes for as long as possible.
Exposing a bit of hypocrisy from those in power would be an awesome way to utilise your arsehole powers Mr Dotcom!
Also, clearly he's doing something right to have made all that money...
Re: Abso-bloody-lutely
I'm not talking about novels, I'm talking about text books which do not require creativity in anything like the same order, and can be commissioned to order.
I'm suggesting that these are written like software - to order, by employees or contractors, so that the commissioning party owns the result. As a software engineer I don't own the IP to the software I create as part ofd my job. I don't see why this model can't be applied to textbooks.
Abso-bloody-lutely
I don't see why they don't do this now. Pay some people to create the books for them, then copy as many times as they like.
No problem.
These authors probably ought to shut up quick-sharp, before everyone realises they're unnecessary.
Re: @jake - "strawman?"
None of which makes any of the previous argument a straw man, you idiot.
A straw man fallacy is the construction of a synthetic argument, characterising (inaccurately) your opponent's position, such that you can easily knock it down.
Answering a question, even if you feel the answer is incorrect, is not a straw man.
Sickening
Seriously, they shut off the network to try and disrupt protests? When did the powers that be take on this siege mentality? Why must people be stopped protesting?
Suppressing protest *just because* seems to be the way to go at the moment. that and sending the police in with non-lethal weapons and kettling techniques. It's no surprise that these thing occasionally go wrong and end in confrontations and property damage - the authorities consider protest to be wrong and the police seem to be bristling for a fight.
You know, except when it comes to stuff like the London riots last year, where there's the actual chance of someone other than pacifist hippies getting involved in a dust-up, and there's not an officer to be found for miles.
Re: Re: Doesn't make much sense now.
IBM stopped development of some variants of Cell, and they haven't announced anything new for over 2 years. They did make some that were beefier that what's in the PS3, Cell PowerX8i I think was the name, but I'm not sure they really went anywhere except a couple of custom supercomputers.
The Sony prediction that Cell would be in all sorts of consumer tech within a few years seems to have gone nowhere.
It's an interesting architecture, but a strange one.
Like Samsung's?
And HTC's? And Lenovo's?
Of course, after it's released, history will have to be rewritten to make it the first.
XFCE for the win
I'm actually being serious. With GNOME and Ubuntu gone crazy in the Linux world, and this interface from MS, I'm more firmly than ever in the old-fashioned resource-light geek interface corner.
@ Steve Foster
ARM devices usually require some device-specific code or variables outside the purview of the OS in order boot, as they don't have anything like a bios that's needed to discover the hardware config. And that's not to mention the various processor family differences etc
It's pretty likely (IMHO) that Windows for ARM will only ever be available pre-configured on devices.
Posted in Aussie soldiers let rip on Facebook
Yup, the pc brigade
Terrible lot, suppressing free speech. They have a lot to answer for. Just look at tech industry conferences! Imagine, the PC brigade shouted at those poor developers so much that they had to start admitting women! And stop using pornography in their presentations, sexist remarks and a myriad of other things! And they pushed out booth babes! Outrageous. The lengths they'll go to in the pointless endeavour to try and fight prejudice!
And now they're getting all upset that our brave boys, only over there to help out the damn foreigners, are posting hateful, sexist remarks about the place!
Seriously, why are you upset with people fighting prejudice?
And if you can't discuss sex or politics with insulting and belittling entire classes of people based solely on their race or gender then it's you that has the problem mate.
Posted in Aussie soldiers let rip on Facebook
Err, yes.
We ask that you shoot a specific subset of armed, militant lunatics. Not hate the whole population of the country we are allegedly in to HELP.
Two different "them"s in there. If the soldiers can't tell the difference then they probably shouldn't be there. (Arguably they shouldn't be there anyway).
