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Comment Re:The Cloud is like .. (Score 1) 22

It's kind of worse. It's like paying someone else who will facilitate *you* maintaining rented virtual computers running *your* software.

I'm convinced from having done a lot of cloud development that the best solution in a lot of cases would be to buy a rack computer and run the software on the rack. The cloud could still be a front end for it, security, load balancing or whatever, but just deploy stuff to your own machines and if you need to scale, then buy more machines. It will cost less and won't be harder to administer than if it were all in the cloud. Moreover, it's easier to switch away from the cloud entirely or another provider when the core of the software has no dependency on it.

Comment Re:It's hard to draw an audience for laptop conten (Score 1) 29

I'm sure it's not just laptops but a general malaise across most print media. I can't remember the last time I bought a magazine. I know I purchased stacks of them in the 90s, not just computer ones but other subjects. In the early 2000s I still bought a few but mostly for cover disks. I think the only other magazines I bought were some magazines when I commuted by train for a bit. Not just magazines but news papers. I used to buy the Sunday Times in the UK because it was literally an inch thick with so many sections & magazines that you could read it for the rest of the week.

Then the internet took over I could read stuff for free whenever I wanted and it was always relevant up to date as opposed to buying magazines which were at least a month behind what was happening. I still read the occasional digital magazine because I have an library app which lets me read them for free, but honestly it's more effort than its worth.

Comment Re:How about a Linux distro (Score 4, Informative) 66

Well there is Redox which is a Rust based OS. But even in Linux there are efforts to use Rust for certain things in the kernel and also outside. I doubt anyone wants to rewrite for the sake of rewriting but if there is code which is especially vulnerable or important for security then it's a candidate to consider using Rust instead of C.

Comment All this was obvious years ago (Score 1) 147

Physical controls don't move around, can be felt and operated by someone with muscle memory and they give positive feedback when they are operated. Haptic or touchscreen controls have to be looked at. If someone is looking at the screen or a flat surface then they're not looking at the road. While it is reasonable for automakers to remove some controls, when they start interfering with core features - indicators, headlights, volume, wipers, wing mirrors, horn, brakes, drive selector, aircon/heater, demister or anything like that they're putting lives at risk.

Tesla is the worst for it and it seems only the threat of bad NCAP ratings is making them having second thoughts. They recently reinstated the indicator stalk for example. But other automakers do not have to follow and I don't understand why they are. If the cheapest, shittiest car on the road can have physical controls, there is no excuse for anything more costly to omit them.

Comment Re:Sensible (Score 1) 170

Snowden's "revelations" were nothing of the sort. The US, China, Russia, Iran, France, UK and everyone else has and always have developed exploits and tools to compromise and spy on allies and adversaries because its in their interests to do it. This was known before Snowden betrayed his own country by revealing American means and capabilities.

But conversely in a war, it behooves countries to exercise common sense and lock down the potential for compromise and information leakage. Probably Iran should have done it sooner IMO, since Israel probably has probably compromised a lot of phones and devices used by government and military services.

Comment Sensible (Score 4, Insightful) 170

Iran is at war with Israel and the US. It would be very stupid to be using tools provided by its adversaries no matter what public reassurances were given. Even if Whatsapp was encrypting messages end to end, it's still potentially capable of providing IP address, location and other useful meta data to an attacker.

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