Posts by Brewster's Angle Grinder

0. The routine to do the actual conversion has to be WASM.

1a. Do the conversion, on the fly, in a service worker. So the page requests `./image.jxl?convert=jpg` and the service worker hooks this and converts it into jpeg. This is the best solution, modulo service workers not being well fitted for this kind of filtering.

1b. Fetch the binary data on the UI thread, convert it into a format recognised by the browser, then put it in a `Blob` and use `URL.createObjectURL()`. You can still use ordinary `img` - you just have to update the `src` based on some agreed strategy. (We put canvas rendered stuff into images in a similar way.) If you want it in CSS, it's possible to enumerate the style sheets and find the URLs and replace them.

In my opinion, the performance hit is probably not worth it. And the more images you have (i.e. the closer you are to a setup where bandwidth/storage gains are significant) the bigger the performance hits become. But it can be layered in to existing setups.

Re: Safari Is An Albatross Around The Necks Of Web Developers

It's nowhere near as bad as they used to be*. And becoming harder and harder to find gaps. Speculation is the EU's decision has driven the sudden burst of conformance.

The bigger annoyance is that old phones are stranded on old versions of Safari. But, I guess, you'll soon be able to recommend people with outdated iOS switch to Chrome. (Yay, who doesn't want Browser recommendations?)

* Of the cases you list: they now actually support WebGL 2. `EventTarget` `passive` is all that seems to be missing and is a performance hack - if they think their platform doesn't need it, fair enough. I'm genuinely uncertain about whether `requestIdle` is a worthwhile API; better to use a separate thread?

Re: "DNS, however, can't prevent internal use of ad hoc TLDs"

Fair enough, I was being sloppy with my terminology. The point I was trying to make is that the DNS systems will be set up to treat it as special and stop it at the edge of an organisation in the way they won't for other domains.

Down South: even the water's hard.

Last time I checked, you could get your entire RDA of calcium from 7.5l of tap water. Which, I guess, is why people bottle it up and sell it as mineral water.

In English courts, that wouldn't be double-jeopardy but the normal appeals process. The superior will have told the junior court in made "an error in law", and sent the case back to reevaluate the facts using the "correct law" as determined by the superior court.

Re: any fashion house

A chance to revisit one of the all time great cartoons: 'Fortunately, I was wearing my armour.'

Re: Corruption

"Any large website has to cope with "thousands of terminals", all different, all configured by someone else..."

Realistically, they're running Chrome (or a derivative which for all intents and purposes behaves like Chrome) or Safari or Firefox. Apple can't keep Safari users on the same version, but the other two keep their users current. So you're looking at a handful of configurations - not thousands. The browser does all the work sorting out the user's configuration.

Stare decisis went out the window when Roe vs Wade was overturned. These judges are now unelected legislators.

Here's the current executive chair of HS2 talking to the Transport Select Committee this week:

There are four reasons why the cost is more than what has been budgeted for. The first is that the cost estimate in the first place and the budget that was set in the first place were too low, in my opinion....Secondly, there have been some changes to scope. Thirdly, there definitely has been some poor delivery on our point. And fourthly there’s inflation,...

....It is worth remembering that between 2010, when the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, initially launched HS2, and 2019, when the current budget was set, the scope of HS2 was changed significantly by a whole series of Ministers. Much more of it was put through tunnels, which cost a lot more than putting it through cuttings, for example. There have been a whole series of scope changes. Yes, it is true we have not delivered in the way we said we would do.

...The Government and the company decided to let cost-plus contracts, where 99% of the financial risk is with the Government and only 1% is with the contractor, which is extraordinary. That was well before my time, but my understanding is that it was done in order to get these contracts away because they were so huge. This is the civil engineering contracts, not the station contracts.

If you're interested in researching the anatomy of a government cock up, it's well worth reading (or hearing) all of it.

Re: Inspiring

I think we call that fan fiction. Okay, it take more than a few days to appear. But, given sufficient time, the position stands.

We already have a culture that values authenticity. NFTs took this to an absurd level. But what makes the Mona Lisa valuable is not the image itself, but that it was painted by Da Vinci. (Witness the recent shenanigans over Salvator Mundi. It's value is tied to it being authentic rather than being one of the many copies of the lost original.)

So do you want to read the completion of Games Of Thrones by an AI, or wait for George R.R. Martin - even if (as a time traveller) I tell you the AI one is better than what will finally emerge?

Re: Rik, you're just trolling us now

If trees can do CCS as a side-effect of living, you'd think humanity could match or improve on it when we put our collective heads together. Plants, for example, need water and are vulnerable to pests. If we can do solar-powered CCS without water, then we do it in the desert.

Re: Don't get this confused with free speech.

"On the other hand, if I say publicly "My boss is an asshole and should resign"... well, expect consequences."

And, on the other, other hand, congress can still make laws saying "You can't be fired for calling your boss an asshole, when he patently is one." IANAL, but that appears to be what has happened and us the right they are trying to exercise. The courts will determine if that is the case.

Re: What about the people who can't visualize?

It takes me a lot of concentration to visualise. I can often only manage a facet of an image. If I stop actively concentrating it disappears. And its very noisy. Occasionally, often on the edge of sleep, I can remember something with the clarity of a photo; as if I was looking at it with my eyes. And it just stays there effortlessly. Stressful situations also create a snapshot image that I can recall eidetically, too, unfortunately.

But for counting sheep, for example: all I can manage is a nondescript lump arcing though the background noise. Anything more than that, requires too much concentration. (I can't, apparently, visualise a whole sheep, even with maximum concentration.) And I couldn't visualise friends and family well enough to draw them. Or even answer simple questions like - were they wearing glasses. Although I have no trouble recognising people.

Contrast this with bloody earworms: where it feels I can recall a piece of music as if I was listening to it live, and with enough fidelity to transcribe non-melodic parts.

Re: It ain't going to work

Then I guess the question is how badly will it be gamed? Once people are gaming it to the max will it still be better than the present system?

Or will it need to be constantly managed and adjusted to eliminate "innovative" loopholes. And if so, who will do that and with what powers?

Sure they'll price it in. But they might price it wrong. (Would they have priced in 10% inflation before Ukraine was invaded?) And its makes then compete up front.

Do we leave Microsoft in charge of Chrome development?

As far as I can see, advertising on search pays for most of what Google does. Split from that, I'm not sure how many of its other services are viable.

Think of it like a bomb accidentally detonating...

It doesn't matter how rarely an advertiser can appear next to Nazi propaganda. It's only matters that it can happen at all.

"For some reason, I keep confusing him with Sam Bankman in my head"

I'm the same. They're the Sam Men.

Re: Who?

Most Brits will have heard Sia's Breath Me (possibly without the lyrics) even if you've not heard of her. It's been used for so many ad campaigns and shows; it was unavoidable for a while.

As I follow this, they were told about the flaw in 2018. They could have issued the performance-hitting microcode fix then.

What seems to have happened is they kept schtum until the flaw was exposed again this year. So they're on the hook for five years worth of data leaks which might have been going on and which they could have stopped. And for not being upfront to buyers about the problem.

Re: One time pad - with a twist

I didn't downvote. But OTP-fanatics are the crypto-equivalent of gold bugs.

Re: Nail, meet head!

I agree about the usefulness of specialist ads back in the day. But that was before Google. These days, if you want to buy something, you don't flick through the ads in a magazine, you hit the big G and your favourite ecommerce sites. Maybe your signed up for sites and they email you special offers.

But Sky are many orders of magnitude bigger than these guys.

You need energy to sustain a magnetic field. That energy has run out. Somebody needs to give Mars a vigorous shake to get it running again.

Re: Meter made...

I like the postie tie up. That has legs (in shorts).

Re: Thanks for the belly laugh, I needed that

The idea mutated into a computational "proof of work" so that computational costs which would be manageable for legitimate users would be huge for spammers. And that, in turn, mutated into bitcoin. And the rest, as they say, is spam.

Re: “… that program you wrote in 2019”

"...but they've given me things of nominal value as unsolicited thank..."

He was remunerated for his work. It doesn't have to be cash; benefits in kind count. (And it should have been declared on a tax return.)

Re: We've been struck by an iceberg

Which way is "ahead"...?

(That's pretty much the situation they're in, by the sounds of it. What a mess.)

Re: X Management visualised…

That wasn't what I was suggesting. I was just thinking of problems like this. Surely there's got to be a few in there? (Now imagine a fire like that where they were mostly electric...)

But maybe, paradoxically, the fire was big enough that everything has been properly toasted and all the energy has been liberated.