doc_holliday

Yeah, I was thinking of similar, would be good to see how it works out for you. There's obviously the command line tools for building, but I would miss the integration of Xcode as an IDE for iOS storyboards etc.

Otherwise I've been looking at using remote servers from macincloud.com / xcodeclub.com, but haven't tried that yet.

Damn, my Macbook Air 2013 logic board just gave out, and was considering the upgrade to Macbook Pro 2017 as logic board is running at £450 replacement cost.

After reading other's thoughts here, I think I have to avoid Macbook Pro for now, I hope they change this in the next release.

Annoying as I need a machine with Xcode.

Video encoding would be stateless. There is no reliance on previous runs / state.

Lambda is designed to be used for tasks like that, such as resizing images, parsing file etc.

Thanks, serverless looks interesting.

Lambda has a long way to go, it's a promising product but if you want to develop anything for it, it's a bit painful and archaic.

I've had issues with the temp memory. It is completely unreliable, you have to store files when processing in /tmp/ and for whatever reason, reading from this results is patchy. I had to resort to storing every file I process in the RAM.

The tooling is only just taking off now, 6 months ago simulation was painful, at least there is AWS SAM now and docker support.

However despite the pain, it's giving me a solution for scalable video encoding that is very cost competitive and I don't have to worry about submitting jobs and monitoring resources.

As much as I wish they did, I am not sure they will.

A large portion of the UK has no idea how encryption helps them and believe that criminals and terrorists should "have nowehere to hide".

Still have a main job 40 hours a week. (But yes working on making it main!)

I try to get in 20-30 hours a week just now.

(Have dropped most other activities because I am pushing to try launch in couple of months).

How is that in anyway comparable to the suffering of an actual animal?

As far as I am aware no one has ever made a proper holographic game, as in a game with parallax on the display.

Most true holographic displays are still under lab conditions with high power lasers, expensive optics and precision setup. Maybe someone at a lab has hacked together a game of sorts though.

You could probably create a sort of holographic game with a lenticular display. You would have slight parallax with a couple of views, it would be quite rudimentary though but a fun project.

Awesome, I am thinking this could be used to create an animated hologram by quickly changing the polarization of the indcident light on the hologram.

That would be very impressive to see.

The number one thing to remember is almost no one cares what tech you used. Just get it shipped.

People have built million dollar business that had it's first iteration in MS Excel, if it is useful to someone and kind of serves the purpose then that is enough for a start.

"On the Shortness of Life" - Seneca.

More an essay, but profoundly impactful.

"and includes unlimited cloud DVR storage with no fixed term contract"

That is essentially VoD that they are offering as well as broadcast.

"unlimited DVR" is PR speak for VoD in this case.

I know that the Snapchat platform is worth something, it has high engagement and adoption of 18-24 year old age segment, and that is worth a lot in terms of attention and advertising $s.

However, this just feels completely out of proportion to earnings and downside does not seem priced in. Willing to be proved wrong of course, but especially seeing as they are non voting shares, I cannot understand this pricing.

Do you the offer service aswell for logo design being made in both iOS and Android icon styles?

I would be tempted to hit it at this price, but want something I can get out into iOS and Android icon easily.

Also, reading back, this is a huge huge red flag:

> "I dumped all the images into separate PNG files, and then used sips to convert the PNGs to somewhat-more-reasonably sized JPGs"

You are adding further compression to the PNGs (the frame grabs) by using JPEG (I assume you are using it in lossy mode), which is basically adding another form of compression to your results.

The fact you used JPEGs (further compression) for comparison basically null and voids all the results I am afraid.

Some interesting analysis here, but I think you are analysing a video far too heavily in the spatial space i.e at frame level, this doesn't particularly give reliable results as compression and hence artifacts can vary according to frame in time.

Video needs to be analysed ideally in the temporal space (i.e as a sequence). I see no mention of the GOP structure or length of the encoding chosen, which would need to be considered.

For example the one frame you have chosen to compare could be an I frame in some of the video compression or could be a P or B frame which would result in slight variance in quality and artifacts.

Yes, you are right in strict definition that they won't know specifically which app you used to visit a site. Yes you visited for example Hacker News (according to the IP log) but they wouldn't know which of the many Hacker News apps you used to visit it. That is right and accurate, so yes they don't know which specific app you used.

However, the use of the term app is probably more to do with vast usage of apps to now consume the internet. So if you now just use the term "website", many of the general populace (who aren't technical) will think that's fine they won't know because I use apps for Facebook etc.

It's important people know that this covers access through apps. So they simplify the usage of that term.

Technically incorrect yes, but probably a proper description for general readers.

Do we know why this was? That he changed stance?

I would imaging they are simplifying slightly, by using the term app. They wouldn't know for completely offline apps.

They probably mean for instance the Gov would know when you use Instagram, Facebook etc on your phone.

As the iOS or Android app will be sending requests to Instagram, Facebook etc IP and the Gov will log this.

Slightly related question, does anyone know if these laws are backdated. I.e a year's worth of data retention is that available to the list of access from now? As in have ISP already been collecting?

Has the data collection started? Is it about to start?

Yes, the lack of outrage is worrying to say the least.

What I find very disturbing is the response I've got from some people in regards to signing the petition against the legislation.

"I don't want to sign that, I will probably end up on some watchlist".

This is incredible, to admit this you are basically admitting that we no longer live in a free democracy. If you cannot sign a petition regarding basic civil liberties without ending up on a watchlist then you do not live in a free democracy. Upon me telling them this, I am usually then greeted with a shrug.

Here is the response from the Government to the petition posted:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199

"The Government is clear that, at a time of heightened security threat, it is essential our law enforcement, security and intelligence services have the powers they need to keep people safe.

The Investigatory Powers Act transforms the law relating to the use and oversight of Investigatory powers. It strengthens safeguards and introduces world-leading oversight arrangements.

The Act does three key things. First, it brings together powers already available to law enforcement and the security and intelligence agencies to obtain communications and data about communications. It makes these powers – and the safeguards that apply to them – clear and understandable.

Second, it radically overhauls the way these powers are authorised and overseen. It introduces a ‘double-lock’ for the most intrusive powers, including interception and all of the bulk capabilities, so warrants require the approval of a Judicial Commissioner. And it creates a powerful new Investigatory Powers Commissioner to oversee how these powers are used.

Third, it ensures powers are fit for the digital age. The Act makes a single new provision for the retention of internet connection records in order for law enforcement to identify the communications service to which a device has connected. This will restore capabilities that have been lost as a result of changes in the way people communicate.

Public scrutiny

The Bill was subject to unprecedented scrutiny prior to and during its passage. The Bill responded to three independent reports: by David Anderson QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation; by the Royal United Services Institute’s Independent Surveillance Review Panel; and by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. All three of those authoritative independent reports agreed a new law was needed.

The Government responded to the recommendations of those reports in the form of a draft Bill, published in November 2015. That draft Bill was submitted for pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament. The Intelligence and Security Committee and the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee conducted parallel scrutiny. Between them, those Committees received over 1,500 pages of written submissions and heard oral evidence from the Government, industry, civil liberties groups and many others. The recommendations made by those Committees informed changes to the Bill and the publication of further supporting material.

A revised Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 1 March, and completed its passage on 16 November, meeting the timetable for legislation set by Parliament during the passage of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014. Over 1,700 amendments to the Bill were tabled and debated during this time.

The Government has adopted an open and consultative approach throughout the passage of this legislation, tabling or accepting a significant number of amendments in both Houses of Parliament in order to improve transparency and strengthen privacy protections. These included enhanced protections for trade unions and journalistic and legally privileged material, and the introduction of a threshold to ensure internet connection records cannot be used to investigate minor crimes.

Privacy and Oversight

The Government has placed privacy at the heart of the Investigatory Powers Act. The Act makes clear the extent to which investigatory powers may be used and the strict safeguards that apply in order to maintain privacy.

A new overarching ‘privacy clause’ was added to make absolutely clear that the protection of privacy is at the heart of this legislation. This privacy clause ensures that in each and every case a public authority must consider whether less intrusive means could be used, and must have regard to human rights and the particular sensitivity of certain information. The powers can only be exercised when it is necessary and proportionate to do so, and the Act includes tough sanctions – including the creation of new criminal offences – for those misusing the powers. The safeguards in this Act reflect the UK’s international reputation for protecting human rights. The unprecedented transparency and the new safeguards – including the ‘double lock’ for the most sensitive powers – set an international benchmark for how the law can protect both privacy and security.

Home Office"

Again in their response, I have no idea what they really said. It's not clear other than some vague line on terrorism and safety. It's all a mixture of half speak and jargon.

Having attempted to read the legislation passed, I actually have no idea in a lot of ways what this bill does and what this bill doesn't cover. (The main thread of what it covers seems terrible).

I consider myself a quite intelligent and logical person, but I get lost halfway through reading it. It seems full of contradictions and half vague statements that could or couldn't cover something.

Are these bills purposefully confusing by design? It seems like you can interpret it in a lot of ways. Why is it not clear, concise and understandable?

From my interpretation they are logging the IP address and ports data transfered from.

So theoretically if you transfer data from insert bad orgs IP address here from within another innocent website you'd be logged for that.

Having been using the Django REST Framework for my latest project, I can too confirm that the REST Framework is Django's killer app.

The level of productivity in writing API backend you can get off it is insane.

I agree, finding a problem that is actually a problem (even if you aren't "passionate" about it) can work.

But I think that is the main point, seeing something that is an oppurtunity.

I was more reffering to people who "play startup" for startups sake, because it is cool or the done thing.

If there is oppurtunity and solution you don't need to be passionate generally.

Yes, I think startup for the sake of startup can lead to all manner of bad ideas. It's the reason why you have a lot of companies solving things that aren't actually problems.

Are there many examples of startups for the sake of startups that succeeded?

"inflation at current exchange rates is forecasted to go to ~3%"

I don't understand how they are calculating it to only be around 3%.

We are already noticing things to be running at around 10% in imports, and sometimes more across various things.

We import a lot in the UK; energy, food, goods.

I personally think it will be way above 3% possibly reaching double figures.