Only to a point, if all you have is solar for example, then any demand after sunset isn't going to help, no matter how much you attempt to manipulate demand.

As it is, solar helps with businesses during the day, though you still have to manage the difference between peak output and cloudy days, plus wind that might work best on the coast at around sunset and sunrise. We do need more renewable energy sources that are always-on, wave for example (the moon disappears or we stop rotating, we've got bigger problems). The trouble is that it is way more expensive than wind or solar which is probably why its not been implemented in any large scale system.

I think you're getting engineer confused with self-opinionated hipster who wants to pretend they are businessmen and engineer without having the skill or talent to be either.

See "Startup" for more details.

Unfortunately, not, none of the idiots who spout rape and death threats against someone would actually do it in reality. When you see them finally prosecuted you see them for what they are: sad little individuals who obviously find an outlet for their internal impotence by being "big men" on the internet and making these threats.

So that's the definition of a troll in my book.

Now I imagine the police and authorities already have the powers to ask for the details of anyone on the web already, its just a time consuming process that many just don;t bother - not unless it gets really bad, and/or affects someone in the public eye (ie us ordinary plebs will not get the cops to do anything about online abuse). Making the process easier doesn't affect anyones rights as the police already have that power. I just hope that making it easier would make them use it more effectively (not forgetting that any prosecution still has all the judicial checks in place to go anywhere) or at least remind the trolls that they can be held accountable for what they say online just as if they'd said it to someone's face.

I got it wrong though, the original quote I was recalling is:

Over the Internet, you can pretend to be anyone or anything.
I'm amazed that so many people choose to be complete twats.

I assumed the trolls we're talking about are the ones who are a bit more obnoxious than just saying "Bing is the best search engine ever, I use it and so should you". The ones who are issuing rape and death threats on twitter, for example.

maybe moderation tools for all is a good thing, and meta-moderation too (to stop the trolls from abusing their moderation powers). If there's one thing slashdot gets right, its this.

Notice how mr PC World has disappeared, as has the GNAA.

The alternative is to allow trolls, but ensure the police have easy access to the 'source' metadata for all accounts. It wouldn't be hard for Twitter (for example) to provide special user accounts to all police forces that can show the IP address and date and time, plus linked accounts (eg those used from the same IP) and similar. Then instead fo having to ask the site ops who someone was, the police can look it up themselves and then ask the relevant ISPs for that IPs account details.

If we allow all but the most obnoxious trolls to hide behind anonymity, then they'll stick around and continue to harrass the sites with enough anti-social behaviour that the site becomes a chore to use.

Unfortunately that doesn't quite work either - look at the Twitter trolls, who spew forth such abuse that several high-profile twitter users cancelled their accounts. The trolls didn't give up, but simply moved on to another part of the web (or different twitter users). So we can ignore them, but only by ignoring the sites and services we want to use.

Of course, I'd say the trolls did those users a favour by getting them to stop using twitter!

"On the internet it is possible to be anyone or anything you like. It amazes me that when presented with this wonderful opportunity, so many people choose to be assholes."

all true, and if you look at alternative languages *such as C# for example) you'll find developers are creating their own version of header files (I refer to file containing an Interface that is to all intents and purposes close enough to the concept of a C++ header to make little difference).

However, C++ headers also contain private stuff. I think a good advance would be to allow private declarations to the cpp file instead, but doing that would mean the public stuff could also be moved too and so headers would become obsolete. Maybe this would be a good thing, but then you'd need some way to extract the public definition from your binaries (as today to compile a shared C++ dll you need a lib/so to link, and the header to compile). So this would have to be changed too, and as C++ doesn't have an ABI, you pretty much can't do it.

I suppose it might be nice to have the IDE generate the headers, but then, you'd be restricting your coding to those IDEs that support this- no more writing a bit of C++ in notepad or vi. So I guess that's out too.

Ah, but the "won't get used much" means "will be quite a surprise when you see it being used". I guess a smaller language with fewer features is a good thing, because you just can't remember all the bits n bobs that are possible.

I agree rvalue references are not pretty - but maybe they could have used the ^ symbol and screwed Microsoft's C++/CLI over :-)

C with classes - I haven't got a problem with this, but many people do. You see some code written like C and some people shout out "write it in C++" meaning use stl algorithms and suchlike. I think C with classes is a good thing as it introduces the best bits of C++, but then I also think it means learning the better bits won't get done as people will have learned to think in a procedural way, rather than the more functional way the best STL aspects provide.

Maybe its all an intractable problem, and only solvable by removing the few ugly bits around the edges. Things that you can say "but that's only a small problem" but add upto being a mess in the whole.

actually, I agree with this too - some of the stuff added to C++ is just not pleasant. Its like someone wanted a relatively specialised addition, got it in the standard, and there it is - for all to see and think "did we really need this?!".

I'd like to think the language should be 2-tiers, the easy stuff and the "advanced, specialised" stuff, but maybe that's just promoting the C++ style of "C with classes" that some people code. (not that its necessarily that bad a thing, C is good, RAII is good, together with some pre-rolled STL bits they're great).

Maybe a better question is to ask how much of the C++11 features he expects will actually be used by the majority of C++ developers. I can see for ranges being used a *lot*, but delete functions (ie you put =delete after a declaration to stop it being accessed, like you do with pure virtual functions set to =0), ro some of the other things. What about move operators - good idea, but it'd going to take a long time to get all the documents about C++ updated to include the 4 default constructors for example (ie ctor, dtor, copy ctor, move ctor), not to mention the nasty syntax for using them.

Do you think that one thing holding C++ back is the lack of a standarized binary interface?

Currently if I want to make a module that can be consumed by others (whether than is others using a different language, or a different C++ compiler, or even just to use a pre-built module without sources) I have to export everything as C and use its (de-facto if nothing else) binary standard.

I think an ABI for C++ would increase its "real world" attractiveness considerably with little, if any, overhead. Do you agree, or are there issues around this that make it a significant challenge (apart from vendor adoption of course).

then maybe that's it - when the option comes to upgrade to a superfast fibre connection, you should be getting a IPv6 capable router at the same time. Generally the cheapass routers given away with home broadband can't even do fibre speeds, let alone have the fibre connections.

I'd have thought its an opportunity for ISPs to sell more stuff "upgrade to the new internet, faster and more reliable etc", but no - they still drag their heels and don't offer IPv6 at all. Mine is *still* doing a trial, going on for 2 years now.

serverside COBOL is still going strong. So what was your point?

I thought it was clear - it has fuck all to do with the merits of the various bits and types of java - its lost the battle for popularity. Its seen as insecure and slow.

Nobody wants the runtime on their systems, so any java app will not be as popular as any written in a different system.