Posts by Pig Dog Bay

Yearling - BBC?

Way back in the 90's I remember someone called Yearling at the BBC hosting some interesting pages. They mostly talked about TV programmes and on occasion alien conspiracy theories, great stuff. I can't recall if the pages were Gopher, Lynx or early HTTP.

Did anyone else come across this site?

Wait and See

I have several ad supported apps and paid versions without ads. So the options menu idea here would work for these. However I have an iOS app where you can remove ads with an In App Purchase, so it looks like I will have to create an ad free version of the app to satisfy consent option 3. I decided to use IAP purchases for the iOS app as Apple recommends this instead of separate lite/pro versions of an app.

This is quite obviously a mess, even Google hasn't got a grip on it yet judging by the GDPR emails I been sent as mentioned in the article. Will 1000's of app developers, come the end of May, start receiving fines in the post? Will the app stores start removing non GDPR compliant apps? Will users start sending me emails demanding I should have asked their consent before they used my apps? I doubt it but will wait and see, and then act.

Java low hanging fruit

So this is just a tool that automatically inserts standard boiler plate, such as the ridiculous number of lines of code to read a bloody text file into a string.

Most programmers will already have their own bag of tools for this and new programmers will do well to build their own.

Y2K For Real This Time!

This is quite a big story as when the updates eventually get rolled out we will see significant drop in computer resource availability. I expect to see

- Websites / services becoming slow or going offline

- Lower productivity, workers waiting even longer as their computer grinds away

- Increased business cost to cover the loss of computer resource

- When the embargo is lifted and details of the bug become known, there will be a slew of new malware, especially targeting those who refuse to update

-Big jump in AMD shares price and a crash in Intel's

-But no SEC insider dealing investigation into why the Intel CEO sold his shares before Christmas

Microsoft Everywhere Strategy

The old strategy of Windows first is dead, hence why Windows Mobile/Phone were ditched. Microsoft sees the OS no more than a dumb software layer, its the apps that run on the OS that matter.

So the new strategy is Windows Apps Everywhere, run Office on Android and iOS and MacOS, why waste money developing and supporting expensive new windows platforms? MS also has the ultimate app store, Azure, as someone has commented above, a significant portion of websites now run on Azure.

So it is not surprising that they are creating more portable and less Windows centric version of ASP .Net.

PS4 Pro

Another black mark against the PS4 Pro.

Here's me with my lowly PS4 thinking I will be the underclass of the PS world with all the good Pro folk with their la-de-dah flashier games, pitying us fools. No, I pity thee!

I would have preferred a shorter cycle for a console refresh, say 5 years, but this slightly 'upgraded' version is silly.

Mutiny

I wonder if he was inspired by the show Halt Catch Fire, where the company Mutiny whose business started out as online gaming on the C64, branched out to online chat and then kind of a craigslist.

Pint icon - have two if you can get it run on the Speccy :)

Its a trap

We still don't know who invented Bitcoin, the only clue is the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, which is most likely a pseudonym.

<hat material="tinfoil">

Bitcoin Its a trap by GS, the vampire squid on the face of humanity. The R3 consortium was designed to muddy the waters, procrastinate and stifle any competing blockchains.

The blockchain remembers all transactions, don't think you are safe!

</hat>

It's outta my system now, promise!

Nintendo wants to buy back its shares?

So Nintendo own 32% of Niantic, which means Nintendo will receive 32% of the profits as dividends from PoGo, so Nintendo will make more money.

Nintendo shares have doubled but since this announcement have fallen by 17%, me wonders that Nintendo has missed the boat and wants to by its shares cheap to keep all that nice PoGo dividends?

COBOL Legacy

Britain was a pioneer of computing and so we have built up a lot of legacy systems over the decades, this is why COBOL is still very prevalent. Johnny Come-Lately's can make a clean start with the technology of the day and write more concise code with more detailed requirements.

Good

I was never impressed by BD and their noisy lump of metal, Big Track from the 80s was more useful!

DeepMind is what Google should be concentrating on, artificial general intelligence will be a game changer, dwarfing any daft prancing robots

Sunken Cost Fallacy

This is what I like about the reg, I looked it up and learnt something new about economics. I can now sound clever in meetings about projects that refuse to die but won't because too much money has been invested :)

Beastly, Just Beastly

Goto's are evil, only bone idle spaghetti loving coders use them. Relying on compiler tricks is a dangerous game, compilers change, code gets ported, 'nuanced' techniques can get lost.

Code should not be clever, it should be maintainable and easy to read.

BS

There's very little money to be made in apps in my experience, where on earth do these average earnings per month come from? Please let me know, I must be missing out!

These days I write apps for other people, like the adage about Gold Rushes, better to sell the picks and shovels.

What Tis It?

What is this Docker that you speak about? And this Devops malarky!

It's like Al Qeida or ISIS just popping up from nowhere.

360?

Anyone know if Win10 is coming to the 360? It will give me a good chance to try it out.

+1 RoboCop

Clicked on this because of the RoboCop piccy

M.A.D.

Looks like Google's acquisition of Motorola for its patents has paid off, Google is now a fully paid up member of the Patent Nuke Club

Mr Robot

'Apple, you've got a factory of children making phones'

Isn't this a quote from Mr Robot?

Lucky trench diggers

The only time I played on an Amiga was when I went round my mates house, a mate whose dad bought him everything. I had to go home and play Rastan Saga on me speccy

C#+Thesauraus

Quick guide to Swift for C# programmer:

this...self

interface...protocol

var...let

Thumbs up as anything is better than Objective C

One slight adjustment tho

If I were to make one adjustment to poignant end scene, I'd have a huge spaceship flying over the juggernauts, showing the ARM logo.

This story must be warming a few cockles of the hearts of most folks. Yesterdays story about IBM and OS/2 being crushed by Microsoft makes for a great contrast to today's state of play.