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> Remember the woman who proved that Apple consistently slows down sold iPhones with "updates" right before the launch date of a new model?

No. Story linked from daily mail (that's not a "source") is more nuanced.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/upshot/hold-the-phone-a-bi...


From the link: "The important distinction is of intent. In the benign explanation, a slowdown of old phones is not a specific goal, but merely a side effect of optimizing the operating system for newer hardware"

When we try to judge intent we do judge the context. So let's look at the context: people do know that iPhone updates will probably slow their device(even though Apple doesn't tell them that). And there's no way to stop the nagging update notification (aside from jailbreaking).

So let's not be naive. Maybe it's hard to prove at the legal level, but there's a pretty decent chance that this is intentional by Apple.

EDIT: if you upvote, please explain why you think this is wrong.


Software getting slower with updates is a fact of life. It's been an obvious and expected thing since I started being aware of computers and updates in the late 1980s and I'm sure it was a thing even before that. The odds that Apple is doing this on purpose, rather than as a standard side effect of cramming ever more features into their stuff, are so low it doesn't bear more than a moment's consideration.

What's next, people say Apple deliberately destroys batteries after a few years, rather than being a natural consequence of battery chemistry? Apple deliberately makes their screens shatter when dropped?


I'm not arguing against the update making the device slower. But the fact it's built so people would upgrade(via irremovable nagging), even when it's clearly not what's best for them.


Huh? Of course you're not arguing against the update making the device slower. You're arguing that the update not only makes the device slower, but that this is a deliberate action by Apple to make older devices slower. And I'm saying that's ridiculous since it happens to pretty much all software anyway and all Apple would have to do to make this happen is just develop updates the same way everyone else does.


The NES cart connector can be repaired with some patience or replaced inexpensively.

A lot of sites selling new connectors claim they are made with more robust materials than the original connectors, but I'm not sure how true that is.


Copy to clipboard, apparently.

(Github project pages have a flash application to handle this)


Good news, we're getting there. In Chrome 43 and (probably) Firefox it's supported: http://caniuse.com/#search=clipb (see note 3)

However the API is god awful.


> However the API is god awful.

To be fair, it's basically a proprietary IE5 API that's now been standardised (like quite a few others).


Isn't this like a huge security risk?


Why? Copy FROM clipboard would be, sure. Copy TO clipboard... OK, I can come up with scenarios where it'd be a problem, but they're pretty far-fetched.


Well there are attacks in the vein of this: https://thejh.net/misc/website-terminal-copy-paste


Run a timer overwriting your clipboard every 10ms. Prevent you from copying anything off a webpage and instead replacing it with a copyright notice. Etc., etc., etc.


Flash has offered these same clipboard APIs for years and these clipboard "attacks" have never been a problem before. I don't see how replacing Flash clipboard APIs with HTML clipboard APIs will change web developers' behavior.


There's a permission prompt for first use and I think Mozilla considers making it https only.


Is that why I keep getting notifications that github wants to use flash player? Good to know.


Always worth checking if the IP you inherit is in some DNSBL. A number of Hetzner IPs I've gotten were tainted.

It's oh so much fun trying to get them removed.


Was just looking at a review for a new game, Stormfinch, which uses this engine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2sd2FNPTBs

It's clearly a little clunkier than monochrome or simple colour attribute shooters, but still pretty competent.


Clunkier. Yep. Doesn't look near as good as the 'real' Spectrum R-Type.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6lvAXSGBpI

I think it's the blocky movement that kinda kills it for me.


Perhaps I'm missing something but the video you linked to seems to have blocky movement as well.


Some of those sound effects are AY-8192 sounding to me, explosions on the spectrum were never like that.


They added an AY chip to the Spectrum starting from the 128K model I think. It was also available as an add-on to the original 48K.


The Spectrum 128 contained an AY-8192, so you are right on the money. Earlier models were beeper only.


> There is no way in hell a 1.79Mhz 6502 can play streaming video.

It can't decode MPEG 4 real time, of course, but machines of this class are more than capable of streaming video.

ZX Spectrum streaming with a network interface (~3.5MHz Z80):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooi9rpx6ECM

Commodore 64 with lots of RAM (~1MHz 6510):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXLv7UosQXs



I may be a sentimental old fool, but 8088 Domination genuinely brings a tear to my eye. The perfect timing of the "I WAS WRONG" reveal (i.e. "Oh look, this IS graphics mode") and the familiar breakdancer appearing - greatest callback in demo history. I really hope the room erupted into applause at that moment - just perfect.


They did :)


Ireland has a Pay As You Earn system which is usually administered by your employer. Mostly, you do nothing and the money is paid.

Every 5 years, file a P21 to check you're not due any refunds.

If you're self-employed, it's a bloody nightmare.


5 years seems like a long time to wait for a tax refund. Especially tax refunds totalling $2500+ are quite common here in Australia. We have a PAYG system too.


You don't have to wait 5 years, you can request them yearly. They just go back 5 years (I think).


I remember someone (not me, oh no...) used one for NT4 with inadequate policies to get Admin access.

Create a batch file with the content:

net localgroup administrators NewUser /add

...then stick this into the 'StartUp' directory for All Users. Break something. Call support. They log in as Administrator, running your batch file in the process.

NewUser would be created with Admin rights. You wouldn't promote your own login, of course.


> Anyone knows what their software development process is to get that kind of confidence?

If it's NASA confidence, waterfall every time :)

Having worked in that sort of environment (everything about the system has been analysed on paper before a text editor is launched), don't knock it until you've tried it. This wasn't rocket science either, it was export refund batch jobs. In the 21st century.


I have five Seagate branded 3TB external disks, so have no real idea what's inside.

Three of them are dead. I stopped using the others.


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