Posts by Version 1.0

Re: students can't learn Fortran ?

The students will be busy learning Julia and getting it working to model the climate model, so it's going to be a while before we get to start verifying that the new code replicates the original climate model. However that will be a very good experience for the students and will probably make them very good coders - it will be a good lesson:

println ("hello whirled")

But a FORTRAN programmer would just be writing the original code in Julia, FORTRAN programmers can write FORTRAN programs in any language - that's a traditional joke but the reality is that creating accurate and functional code is determined by the writer, not the language.

Re: Worrying

But these are NOT your typical "average IoT device" - I think your comment probably illustrates how this happened, they were designed by people working to fix medical issues and help patients move around - the entire design efforts for any medical device are to make them work 100% and cause no new health issues. The designers were concentrating on making a device that worked, not a device that couldn't be hacked and was 100% secure.

This is not a criticism of the designers, it looks like they were doing a good job - but the hacking is something that's totally outside the original design efforts - you can't build a device and have the doctor say, "It broke their ankle" and then reply, "sorry about that but it can't be hacked by ransomware."

These days, building an "unhackable" device is going to need a lot more effort than just meeting the company management's initial design definition.

Re: Yeah right.

I think this could pretty much end COVID, everyone will start wearing masks all the time even if they are anti-vaxers. Also maybe we'll start to see a lot more big beards, long hair, and everyone wearing very big hats (with floppy sides) all the time. Remember how things changed when the Beatles appeared with long hair!

Re: Educational Only

I remember back then occasionally working from home with the code - mainly because the day to day issues at the office were a complete pain and there was never the time to review all the code because people were messing with everything. So when there were bugs that nobody could fix I'd take the code home for a day and fix it, bringing the fix back to the office on a floppy disk in my pocket (icon - LOL).

Re: Finally- a solution for the homeless

"In what city is that a solution" I don't think this is how Catalhoyuk was built 10,000 years ago but it does sound like we could easily return to those days of easily building a few hundred houses, and then a few years later (when they collapse) building another couple of hundred on top of the old ones. Of course there will not be bulls heads mounted in the walls, just TV's these days. 10,000 years ago it fixed the "homeless" problems for the hunter/gatherers.

Re: Designed for repair?

My comment is just based on trying to keep my families phones running for years now - iFixit has always done an excellent job documenting the "fixes" and making the parts available. Doing the repairs can work, but it's not easy because of the way the phones are built.

Re: Salton Sea

I wonder if the side effects of reprocessing of lithium results in much less harmful pollution than we've been hearing about for years when lead-acid batteries are being recycled?

"Certain lithium compounds, also known as lithium salts, are used as psychiatric medication, primarily for bipolar disorder and for major depressive disorder that does not improve following the use of antidepressants. In these disorders, it sometimes reduces the risk of suicide. Lithium is taken orally." - Wikipedia

Re: Taking the eye off the ball

I just see virtually all countries in the world as being run by leaders who's brains never grew up after being about four to five years old. The majority of "world leaders" are just kids being stupid idiots ... they need to grow up and stop kicking their cats and puppies.

"I have a total irreverence for anything connected with Facebook except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer." - Brendan Behan (updated)

Re: It's a bit creepy

Sure, it's even more creepy when you are just walking across the room and the room starts to shake a little, it would be good to know that it's worth getting into the doorway and standing there for a bit.

Re: France ($28.92)

"from my landline I can call landlines in most of the world for free" ... so maybe I'll go and dig that old DC Hayes Micromodem out of the cupboard ... a lot slower I guess (not a Gigabit, more like a gimmyalittlebit) but I bet the malware delivery attempts would end once they discover that the link is that slow.

Re: "Any fool can write a language"

I started using assembler and then moved to FORTRAN in a new job, and since then I've had tasks that have involved writing in many new languages to fix problems for years now. Essentially when a new language appears, if I have to use it then I will ... I've always laughed at the old joke; "A FORTRAN programmer can write FORTRAN programs in any language" but LOL, it's a fact.

Re: Extra credit

"What the hell difference does it make, Python or Assembler? There were good programmers lost on both sides." - Brendan Behan (updated to today's world).

Re: Trickle-down economics

So will the new workers be told to "train at home" by watching YouTube videos about loading a ferry and heading out to sea? Will we hear a worker on the news in a few months saying, "Oh, I didn't lock the doors at the back, sorry."?

That's an example of "Trickle-down economics" ... I hope the icon on this post never has to change!

"They just want things to work and be easy to use." - that's the entire environment in our world these days and we're always told that Google values their users' privacy (75.32B in 2021) so "privacy" is working for Google.

Re: And even stranger things have happened and are happening .....

Alistair, Really Super Educated Human Organiser Laughing Everywhere ... and that's a great story!

Re: Heads in the sand

If they had all been working from home then Boris would have just had his parties on Zoom and everyone would be happy now. I love Dilbert's recent series with the cartoon "The Office is a beautiful place when everyone else works from home"

Re: So true

These days if it was "free" then Intuit would be selling all your data.

Re: Do an online job interview, we'll pay you for the privilege

Phishing is standard these days, it's made so realistic because so many companies no longer handle their own emails, they are all using third party servers to send email, publish their web pages, and log into accounts. Very little of the internet is designed to be safe these days, it's just supposed to be easy to use - the cybercrooks appreciate that.

Re: For what it’s worth

If you want to see which AV app detects a virus then upload the potential infected file to virustotal - if your file is infected then virustotal will usually spot it and you'll see all the AV apps that don't.

All malware is written to avoid being detected and all AV software is updated all the time to catch the infections.

Re: People understand the real cost

I have posted this many times, it's an updated Brendan Behan quote that I think defines the open source issues very well (the original quote has always made me laugh), I see so many of Behan's views and quotes needing only a small update to describe our problems these days:

"The big difference between software for money and software for free is that software for money usually costs a lot less."