dfawcus

Joined 7 years ago

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574

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494

Member since

Mar 23

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Recent submissions

Comment · 1 month ago

Assuming you're a native English speaker, why is "whiskers" unfamiliar?

If not referring to the beard as a whole, how else would you reference the facial hair - whiskers is less of a mouthful than any other term.

Comment · 1 month ago

What is the problem with that paragraph, other than the long sentence with many comma separated phrases?

The only 'non modern' bits are 'Michaelmas' (which I know is a Christianity related date), and 'undistinguishable' where I'd use 'indistinguishable'. So the note about the student being quizzed to translate to 'modern English' seems moot as it is modern English.

However, I'm English, so a number of the terms are immediately obvious.

I obvious know who the Lord Chancellor is (as the role still exists); as do the Inns of Court, being where Barristers receive their initial training. So I would suggest it is more a case of needing specific cultural knowledge, than needing enhanced language skills.

Bleak House: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1023/1023-h/1023-h.htm

As to the rest of the initial 7 paragraphs.

In P2, I had to look up "aits" (islands); otherwise they are all of no issue other than the length of the sentences, occasionally requiring me to reread a few phrases.

Basically Dickens is modern English, with a few archaic words being used.

Comment · 1 month ago

Was that not just to avoid other legal complications?

i.e. possibly Intel having some protection (copyright?) over its assembly mnemonics and register names.

Comment · 3 months ago

The documentation for FlexOS 1.2/1.3 is available on Bitsavers. So someone could re-implement it.

The build kit for CDOS-68k 1.2 (aka FlexOS 68k) is available ob Gaby's site.

I worked for an OEM in the 90s, and we used FlexOS 286 (and 386) ver 2.2/2.3 on some custom systems, including an ePOS system.

Comment · 5 months ago

Covid affecting my sense of smell had an impact on this.

Apart from not being able to taste coffee, I also could not taste freshly ground black pepper, fresh spicy peppers, nor Tabasco sauce.

I could only feel the effects of the capsaicin at the back of my throat after having swallowed.

Comment · 6 months ago

The flaw with that article, it being the Beeb showing their bias, is that it mainly applies to the English Home Counties.

So it is a southern English habit, not a British one. The other parts of England are more direct, and will use more obvious phrasing. Similarly the other parts of Britain will be more direct.

Comment · 6 months ago

I understand it works _if_ you declare p as being volatile, or explicitly tag it as _Atomic.

i.e., either of these forms:

    foo * volatile p;
    foo * _Atomic p;

Or at least it did when I was performing a similar experiment.

Comment · 6 months ago

A section? All of Northumberland, as Wallsend is in Tyne and Wear.

The task of walking (or measuring) the whole of England's coastline is made a bit more difficult by the existence of various islands classed as part of England.

e.g. Isle of Wight, St. Mary's Island, Coquet Island, Lindisfarne, the other Farne islands, etc.

Comment · 7 months ago

The volume of UK and US fluid ounces being different also doesn't help.

The UK pint is 568ml, apparently a US pint is 473 ml.

Comment · 7 months ago

Attribute (qualifier), or storage class?

https://www.airs.com/blog/archives/428

The use of 'const' in C is very much a mixed blessing; I certainly have experience of the 'const poisoning' issue. Possibly it would have been better as a storage class.

For bool, yes it was a useful addition. Especially for the cases where old code would have something like:

    #define FLAG_A 1u
    #define FLAG_B 2u
    int has_flag_B (something *some) { return some->field & FLAG_B; }

and that was then combined with logic expecting 'true' to be 1; which could sneak in over time.

Comment · 7 months ago

Alef [1], [2], [3] can in part be viewed as C where methods are available.

An 'aggr' is equivalent to C 'struct' combined with 'typedef', and an 'adt' is an 'aggr' having methods.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alef_(programming_language)

[2] http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/2nd_edition/papers/alef/ref

[3] http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/2nd_edition/papers/alef/ug

Comment · 9 months ago

I had my first go at using it (Github Copilot) last week, for a simple refactoring task. I'd have to say I reasonably specified it, yet it still managed to to fail to delete a closing brace when it removed the opening block as specified.

That was using the Claude Sonnet 4.5 model, I wonder if using the Opus 4.5 model would have managed to avoid that.

Comment · 9 months ago

Someone being beaten up on the streets is domestic policing issue.

That the perpetrators may turn out to be foreign agents is neither here nor there, only if they were diplomatic staff would it not be a domestic policing issue. However the UK police have largely withdrawn from certain areas, and this would simply be another symptom.

High Court action suggests there was a civil case pursuing the perpetrators (or their principals), rather than a criminal case. With a properly functioning police system, that should not be necessary.

Kahn is the PCC for London, he sets their priorities.

Comment · 9 months ago

It is London - hardly surprising.

Nothing will improve as long as Khan is Mayor, and may not even if he is replaced.

Anyway, MI6 (SIS) is the overseas spies, MI5 is the domestic spy agency.

Comment · 9 months ago

Lockdown mode allows one to optionally disable 2g, maybe it is also the default there. One can turn 2g back on in said mode if desired.

As to 3g, it is largely switched off here, and I understand most of the rest of the world is also disabling it.

However it does not remove images from messages, it just disables certain automatic helpers - e.g. link previews etc.

One can still send photos, etc without any issue.