This. And speed aside, Gradle embodies everything that is wrong with modern software development. A giant, opaque, idiosyncratic black box. I develop for Android (Java and Flutter) and it has become a sad pattern from Hell: Android Studio update mandates upgraded Gradle, which breaks previously the build in most weird ways, forcing one to trawl StackOverflow looking for proper incantations to do in the myriad of files it has created with the single purpose of building the damn app. Sometimes I wish, creating new build systems was outlawed some time after gmake or cmake...
Pretty interesting. I guess it was way later, when they came up with the SUID semantics and appropriated the first character for symlinks (l) or setuid binaries (s)...
Second that. Microsoft Money was _amazingly_ practical and useful - head and shoulders above Quicken. It is a real shame, Microsoft didn't find a better solution than to sunset it.
Speaking of crazy applications of Emacs... Long long time ago, my team was tasked with rebuilding an MBS analytics system for one of the leading fintech companies. The original system ran on DEC VAX and was written in VMS Pascal (let's just say, a very unique flavor of Pascal). Rewriting it from scratch was not an option (it would take decades to implement all that complexity and to make sure it worked correctly). Instead, we utilized a combination of tools that first transformed the Pascal code into the form that was closer to more popular Pascal dialects (which included using a Scheme compiler and (drum roll) Emacs in batch mode), applied a set of hand-made patches, translated into C using p2c, and finally built on Linux. As crazy as it sounds, it worked well enough to be used as a foundation for the next gen of mortgage analytics.
Depending on the time frame, FreePascal/Lazarus might have simply been not available (or unknown) to the team.
I remember how in ~1997 at a science camp we used Turbo Pascal under DOS for most programming labs, and whenever pascal code was run on Linux machines we used p2c translator and compiled the resulting C code.
I don't think VAX emulators were the thing back then. :-) In fact, our target platform was a cluster of commodity DEC Alpha machines running an early version of RedHat Linux for AXP. I know for a fact, that we were the first system that employed Linux clusters in fintech.
This is what Ticketmaster did. Up until a few years ago, and it’s probably still the case, they heart of their reservation system was written for the VAX in the 70’s. When they had to make the hardware/OS switch, rather than port, the went to an emulator.
Yes, absolutely. You will be shocked how complex CMOs might be just to calculate plain cashflow on a tranche (https://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Mortgage-Backed-Securities-7... is a great standard treatise on the topic). Add to this interest rate modeling and prepayment modeling - and we are talking serious logical complexity. And this is the area where people get REALLY pissed when you have bugs.
If the bugs affect your shock preparedness, and liquidity status and mandated holdings/reserves, you might be in a world of hurt: Failing compliance can permit the feds to step in and seize the enterprise, if it's in the regulated space.
I've noticed this myself on my main rig running Ubuntu 22.04, which never ever had any perceptible lag. Now it is so bad I was forced to switch to Alacritty.
Doesn't make much sense. Building an ecosystem is far, far more difficult than throwing together a small embedded OS. Just ask Samsung and LG (and Google for that matter). Maybe Amazon has enough clout to force all streaming app developers (and game developers, which is the new frontier, and ad platforms) to suck it down and build support for the new platform but I doubt it - plus the ROI is just not there. Why destroy an active well working ecosystem - to accomplish what exactly?!
- Build a credible software stack - from UI kits to audio and video codecs
- Convince the streaming companies to build one more flavor of their apps (in addition to Android/FTV, AppleTV, Roku, and a bunch of SmartTV platforms)
- Build ad stack and also convince major ad platforms to build their respective ad SDKs for the new platform (believe me, even for established platforms this takes years)
And all of this - to accomplish precisely what??? To wean away from Android? Why? There are no licensing issues, Amazon has grown a tremendous expertise in Android, which underlies most of its devices. Why throw all of this away???
Unlike Amazon, Samsung is much more tethered to Google, because they cannot afford to diverge in Android experience for the phones. They tried to cut this Gordian Knot by building Tizen and they learned their lesson the hard way. But at least for them there was a strategic benefit of moving away from Android. There is no such benefit for Amazon.
> - Convince the streaming companies to build one more flavor of their apps (in addition to Android/FTV, AppleTV, Roku, and a bunch of SmartTV platforms)
Amazon already has to convince them to support Fire apps today. The userspace fork (no Google Play APIs at all) has already diverged enough that software developers think of it as a very different platform no matter how many Android dev tools they share. I certainly see that reflected in lots of streaming company's release notes.
How much is Amazon actually benefiting from a shared Android kernel when userspace is so vastly different today?
Given they already have a diverged userspace and fewer tethers to Google doesn't that make more sense for Amazon to experiment with something like Tizen than Samsung does? Amazon has way more ability to lift and shift their unique user experience without disrupting their users for first party apps, and with how limited the Amazon App Store has become, probably fewer complaints about third-party apps, too.
(Tizen is just an example, of course, but can't help but think that an Amazon-Samsung partnership on Tizen even sounds like a fascinating political game versus Google at this point. Seems unlikely to happen, Amazon doesn't seem to want partnerships like that, but an interesting idea in theory.)
They just want to get a grip back on the platform they built. They let the cat out of the bag too long and Fire devices were too much of a loss leader from people pirating and running third party software and services on them that Amazon decided to take their fenced garden and hike it up to a full-on wall.
Exactly same scenario for me. They generously offered me to re-activate the domain for $55 "lapse" fee. I generously offered them to shove it and registered a slightly different domain with a more reputable registrar. Priceless lesson, as it was a tiny hobby website.
Technically Abraham, as he was the one, with whom G-d established the Covenant. Although I'm pretty sure there are lengthy disputes in Talmud arguing that it started with Adam and Hava.
I'm counting from when Yahweh declared Israel his people and handed down the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai (all mythological, of course, though there may be some real inspiration for Exodus, like the mythological Iliad and the real city of Troy).
The problem with asking "when Judaism started", is that the religion of the Mishnah and Talmud is (very likely) so different from the religion of David and Solomon that they are arguably two different religions, even though one is a descendant of the other.
Possibly, Samaritanism is closer to the religion of the ancient Israelites than contemporary Rabbinic (or even Karaite) Judaism is.
I agree with everything you've said, which is why I earlier said that Judaism is arguably younger than the 5th century BC. The real Israelites were likely not even monotheistic during the time of David and Solomon.
I suspect that will do little good. They can just as well (and likely will) force you to register at some point under the threat of disconnecting your service.
Pre-paid SIM registration was introduced in Poland 7 years ago and existing cards which weren't in use were deactivated. Already active ones had a grace period after which owners either had to register these or pick new SIM and provide required personal data anyway. So I guess similar thing will happen for Lithuania.
The registration was available via short codes since operators in some cases already had the necessary personal data, or or it could be done by physically filling forms at operator's store.
That's how wirtualnemedia.pl portal described the purpose of SIM registration in its FAQ:
> What is the purpose of prepaid card registration? Does it function in other countries of the European Union?
> The primary purpose of the regulation is to increase the effectiveness of the Polish anti-terrorist system, thereby increasing the security of all Polish citizens. The obligation to register SIM cards is aimed at limiting the possibility of communication and camouflage for criminals, including those involved in terrorist activities. Some European Union countries have regulations imposing restrictions on the ability to purchase prepaid cards at service points of telecommunications operators. Such solutions are adopted in Germany, the UK, Spain, Bulgaria and Hungary, among others. The obligation to collect data on subscribers using telecommunications services is found in German law, among others.
It seems that now only Estonia and Latvia still will have "free" pre-paid SIM cards
