I recently discovered something about ChatGPT that genuinely surprised me. At first it seemed almost trivial, but the more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I became. After digging into it, I discovered that something very similar may already have played a part in a political controversy in Australia, which made the implications for ordinary ChatGPT users feel rather more significant.
Category: Personal
Just my personal thoughts and observations
Should I learn C before learning C++? Answer – NO!
I often hear those who really should know better giving the advice that before you learn to code in C++ you should first learn to code in C. At face value this would seem like reasonable advice; after all C++ is a superset of C and so by learning C you’ll be learning some of C++. Unfortunately, this advice overlooks some fundamental but very important differences between C and C++ that may very well damage the learning curve of the student. Continue reading “Should I learn C before learning C++? Answer – NO!”
Technical Debt
Regular readers (do I actually have any, I wonder?) of my blog may be wondering why I’ve not posted any new content for the last few weeks. First off, let me apologise for this. Secondly, let me explain why: I’ve been busy… in my new job! That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, everyone’s favourite evil one has finally found himself employment again.
A sad day for scrobbles everywhere
As from Yesterday I am no longer gainfully employed by Last FM. After a lot of soul searching I have decided to move on. This decision was made in part because I feel I’d gone about as far as I could and in part because the vision of the future for the MIR team is one that I couldn’t really see myself being part of.
Is your password salty enough?
Passwords. They are ubiquitous. You can’t avoid them. Given all the amazing things that have been invented over the last 50 years or so there is still nothing that looks set to replace the humble password any time soon. Any thing you do online these days requires you to register an account. Often this is just unnecessary and just a way of companies harvesting your details to send you yet more targeted ads (spam!). Of course, registering necessitates yet another password.
Continue reading “Is your password salty enough?”
First Direct password fiasco
Why is my bank limiting my Internet Banking password? “It must be between 8 and 12 characters long and can include letters and numbers only.”. This flies in the fact of all best practice when it comes to passwords.
Hablo un poco de español.
About 7 years ago I decided I wanted to learn a little Spanish. I booked myself into a night class at the local university and spent about 4 months studying on a foundation course. I passed the course with an A grade; not conversational but enough of the basics to get by.
Madrid, Infinity08, Juan and something hideous!
I’ve just spent the last week in Madrid with my good friend Infinity08. We originally made friends on Experts Exchange have over the last few years we’ve become very good friends. Infinity08 lives in Brussels in Belgium. I, of course, live in the UK. Clearly, it isn’t always easy to maintain a friendship over a distance but we do ok. We make an effort to send each other e-mails, we talk on Skype and we try to hook up once or twice a year for a short break.
Continue reading “Madrid, Infinity08, Juan and something hideous!”
The Cookie Monster!
Really starting to get fed up with having to accept cookies on all sites I now visit thanks to EU legislation. Ironically, these are the same cookies I’ve been accepting since the Internet Cookie was conceived.