Showing 1 - 10 of 15
Imagining a world without cash
Life, James Hein, Published on 08/05/2024
» How safe are you in a purely digital economy? If you are carrying cash, someone can of course rob you, or you can lose it or give it to someone. You can also have a stash of it at home for emergencies or for buying something from a garage sale. For the most part, you retain control over any cash you manage. Electronic cash can still be stolen and your ability to spend it can be taken by someone else if your details get into the wrong hands. However, it's convenient, just tap and go, or in some cases, just wave your smartphone over a pad. While you have no idea where your money actually is, a small piece of plastic, your watch or a phone can retrieve it for you for a payment. You can even use it to get cash from a wall.
When AI is not smart enough for the job
Life, James Hein, Published on 14/09/2022
» I was wondering what to write about this week and then I saw the Japanese Amazon story and how it relates to artificial intelligence. Labour unions in Japan have been a thing since World War II, but delivery drivers for Amazon Japan were not unionised, until recently.
Scams on the rise as inflation bites
Life, James Hein, Published on 06/07/2022
» We start this week with a webserver with extras in a single file that runs on any x86-64 operation system. Enter redbean 2.0. Created by Justine Tunney, it uses the "Actually Portable Executable" that you can read about here, justine.lol/ape.html. When you compile a program to its native binary, in this case x86-64 code, and don't call any external code, then the only difference between a Windows and a Linux would be the file format. If you can solve this, then it could run on any platform. To do that you need Cosmopoliton libc because any real program needs to make some calls, in this case the standard C ones. So, with Cosmo and the APE format, you can write a C program and compile it to a single file that will load and run on six very different operating systems and the same binary can also be booted directly from the PC BIOS. It's not perfect, but any programmer would be scratching their heads by now. Pause for techie amazement.
Virus exposes the good and bad of tech
Life, James Hein, Published on 22/04/2020
» Google has not been doing so well in the UK. A High Court battle between Foundem and Google, which has been ongoing since 2006, has reached an interesting stage. The issue is ranking algorithms. Readers will remember that I've written about this subject in the past. Foundem had asked the court to approve a review of Google's ranking algorithms by an independent expert. Their claim is that Google demoted Foundem in favour of paid adverts because Foundem is a commercial rival. Google was given the offer to withdraw their evidence that only a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) engineer could understand and when they refused, a choice was made to let an expert examine an unredacted version of the evidence and comment on it. This puts Google in an interesting place. If they withdraw their redacted evidence, it could indicate they are trying to hide something and if they refuse expert analysis, it could indicate the same thing. Their claim is that if an expert looks at the code, they will lose their competitive advantage. Yes, the judge saw through this one as well. The case is currently on hold amid the current Covid-19 situation.
Someone, somewhere still uses IE
Life, James Hein, Published on 12/02/2020
» A Microsoft engineer, Eric Lawrence, who worked on moving the Edge browser to a Google-driven open source base code, has suggested that people need to stop using the more traditional version of Internet Explorer. His plea was a personal one on his own blog but Microsoft cybersecurity chief Chris Jackson expressed the same sentiment a year earlier. IE still has a couple of percent of people using it -- probably those who had it installed on their machines -- that have yet to be upgraded. The technology is old and full of security holes but a number of organisations demand that it still be used.
Facing up to social media bias
Life, James Hein, Published on 21/06/2017
» An interesting thing is happening on the major sharing and information sites like Facebook, Google, Yahoo and others. In what is supposed to be an open and free environment, political editing bias is starting to creep in. The local phenomenon that started in the US has started to pervade the global system. This is not the direct political editing that occurs in places such as China but that of one group's opinions suppressing another side's. It is not an issue if the views being suppressed are demonstrably incorrect but in some cases the factual and data based views are those being suppressed in favour of the unsupportable "politically correct" ones of small but outspoken groups.
Latest Chinese tablets a viable alternative
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/05/2016
» It has been a week and I really like my inexpensive 12-inch Chinese tablet made by Chuwi. I just added a 64GB MicroSD card that immediately popped up as D: drive when I booted into Windows 10. This will be the first Windows 10 based machine that is all mine and so far I have been impressed. The unit has no problems running a program like Visio and I have already used it for a presentation at a client's site. The screen is excellent and I like the way the unit notes when I have disconnected it from the keyboard and asks if I want to change to tablet mode under Windows. I used the Wi-Fi to connect to my mobile phone acting as a hot spot and there were no issues at all. Battery life has been good but that is one aspect I have not had the chance to really test out and reading some blog entries it takes a few charges to reach the full capacity.
Do not feed the trolls
Life, James Hein, Published on 14/10/2015
» The internet is full of nice people who just want to make everyone feel good about themselves. Yes, of course, I'm just messing with you. While there are some people and some sites that are indeed supportive there are many others that are full of anonymous cowards who lurk in wait and revel in making personal attacks. The term "trolls" is a common one and some of these are even paid to wait for an organisation, website, blog or specific individuals to post something so that they can instantly slither in for the attack. It doesn't seem to matter if the subject is somewhere from aardvarks to zebras there will be someone out there to take an opposing position like that one guy in the audience who just doesn't like what you are singing in a pub.
SSD can be a fragging pain also
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/03/2015
» A solid state drive (SSD) has no moving parts and for the most part is — or at least should be — faster than a regular platter based hard drive. Over the years I have had a 128, 240 and more recently a 512GB SSD that I use as my system drive. After the installation of the last one, things started to slow down until it took less time to copy to a regular hard drive than to my new SSD. As you should when you want to check on something, I Googled (any other search engine will also work) for anything to do with my SSD model having problems. Unfortunately, while it is a Samsung 840 series, it is not the one that has had all the problems, so no useful suggestions. Finally, I decided to see if it was slow because it was fragmented.
Sour Apples, high Notes
Life, James Hein, Published on 01/10/2014
» Apple, at the time of writing, says it has sold more than 10 million iPhone 6 units — which is an amazing claim. Of course, the figure for units sold, as we have seen in the case of other manufacturers like Microsoft, could also include orders sent to stores. After some people had lined up for the iPhone 6 for days, reports are starting to come in about some of the problems experienced by these eager, first-time users. Phones are bending in pockets; there are video-formatting issues with the larger unit; and the software on both units is behaving the same, for example the same number of icons being displayed per line on the larger screen. It seems that in the rush to come out with a larger screen, the support and software was not adapted to this new format. The iPhone 6 (both versions) can still be spoofed with the same fake fingerprints the iPhone 5S were susceptible to. All in all, no wow factor and nothing that could attract anyone with a comparable phone in the same market space.