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2020-03-18

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#clojure-uk
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2020-03-18
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dharrigan06:03:39

I have a question. I have an old parent who is not good with technology. Does anyone know of a device that has built in GSM with Video conferencing? I am thinking of getting a little wifi/sim dongle and pair that with an amazon echo show (which looks easy enough, has skype and looks like you just touch the icon to open). I did a search and things like grandpad which is american would be better as it's all-in-one...anyone got suggestions?

fmjrey06:03:51

second hand smartphone?

dharrigan07:03:36

too small, hard to read

dharrigan07:03:44

The echo looks big enough, 10"

dharrigan07:03:49

and it shows the weather 🙂 and stands up by itself without having to hold it (which is handy for someone who has difficultly holding things now because of age)

guy07:03:21

it sort of sounds like ur describing an ipad i gotta say

thomas07:03:29

Morning. My mum (79, and never really used a PC) has an iPad and with that she can send emails and browse the web, do internet banking.

mccraigmccraig07:03:36

yeah, my dad (85, also never used a PC) has an ipad-mini and does emails and some music stuff without any great issues, once he's been setup and shown what buttons to press

dharrigan07:03:16

I see I see. I have considered an iPad - they don't come with GSM sims these days do they?

dharrigan07:03:20

It's wifi only?

dharrigan07:03:08

although ipads are more expensive than the echo show

mccraigmccraig07:03:40

here's the banging-up-to-datest ipad-pro specs - still has cellular options - https://www.apple.com/uk/ipad-pro/specs/

guy07:03:09

We got a cheap(er) refurb ipad for general family use, stuck a kid proof case on it too

guy07:03:16

i think it was only like 120?

guy07:03:24

older edition etc

guy07:03:30

and yeah that one was just wifi only

mccraigmccraig07:03:57

as it seems do all the other models ipad, air, mini - so cellular is still an ipad thing

guy07:03:30

I would probably say if you needed a phone, you might be better off getting a simple phone instead, then an ipad for general tech use

guy07:03:44

Unless they are going to take the ipad around etc

guy07:03:50

Depends on your usecase

dharrigan07:03:59

they have a phone already, a feature phone

dharrigan07:03:07

a little clamshell thingie

guy07:03:24

yeah nice

guy07:03:37

My grandma had a really great simple phone with larger buttons etc, it worked really well for her

dharrigan07:03:56

just lookin at some phone providers, like ee

dharrigan07:03:05

there are samsung stuff...have to review

mccraigmccraig07:03:02

might be worth looking at the google-pixel offerings too - i've been very happy with my pixel phone (after switching from iphone), but i hated the samsung i tried before the pixel

dharrigan08:03:57

Way too advanced for mum

dharrigan08:03:22

PS I have a pixel myself. Great phones

3Jane09:03:24

a friend noticed i was sad & anxious because of the virus situation and he sent me this

3Jane09:03:46

(more images than just the firewall 😉 )

3Jane09:03:10

now i'm no longer sad and anxious, hopefully this will help you have a better day as well 🙂

😂 16
3Jane09:03:53

(on topic (?), I would also get an ipad and default to facetime (or zoom if you need inter-device communication). If you're concerned about price/gsm availability, you can get an old one - i have an ancient ipad 4, it no longer receives system updates even, but most apps still get updates, docs, netflix and plenty of games etc still work great)

Samuel09:03:56

Morning all

dharrigan10:03:08

@lady3janepl thanks! good information!

👍 4
thomas10:03:38

One advantage of an iPad with SIM would be that you can use WhatsApp, and as that gets used a lot by the yoof of today it might be a good way to stay in touch with family etc.

thomas10:03:06

(as I don't think you can use WhatsApp on an iPad with out SIM, but I could be proven wrong)

3Jane11:03:24

Update: no, at least not on my ancient config

3Jane11:03:41

There are plenty of pseudo WhatsApp apps which I would not trust

dominicm11:03:13

Xmpp / signal are pretty safe

dominicm11:03:27

I like signal because it's transparent from your sms

3Jane14:03:42

no, I meant the apps were called "whatsapp for ipad", but weren't

thomas10:03:56

mind you, while my mum understand the concept of email she struggles with the idea of WhatsApp (I already have email, why do I need to as well?)

dharrigan11:03:46

I think an old ipad with sim, locked to one application (skype/facetime) will suffice. When she turns it on, she can be in skype ready to call or for us to call her.

dharrigan11:03:16

Thanks everyone for the help! Esp given the current world situation 🙂

Ben Hammond11:03:41

have Skype solved their spamming problems?

Ben Hammond11:03:53

(i've not looked at it for 10 years)

dharrigan11:03:55

perhaps facetime, or summat - to be decided

guy11:03:18

FaceTime is quite nice and it’s a default app isn’t it?

guy11:03:23

WhatsApp too

guy11:03:39

My mum uses both quite well

Ben Hammond11:03:48

FaceTime requires both parties to be in Apple ecosystem which could be a deal breaker

guy11:03:57

But she’s more Apple tech savvy

dharrigan11:03:06

We have an old MBP lying around and wife is an apple user

manas_marthi12:03:32

Hi All, can someone pls share any resources on implementing API usage limits. Say, max 1000 API calls per day per user...

manas_marthi12:03:57

Or max 10 hits per second per user

Conor12:03:52

The easiest (?) way to do this is to put something like Apigee/Kong with rate limiting plugin in front of your API

Samuel13:03:47

Any libre-hardware proponents in the channel? I get a bad feeling from the management engine microcode that pervades every x86 chip, so I've been looking into the Power 9 architecture in the Talos II; first open spec, yet performant computer I've seen! Pretty sweet stuff tbh Talos II Secure Workstation: https://www.raptorcs.com/content/TL2WK2/intro.html General Motivations of raptor, the manufacturer https://www.raptorcs.com/content/base/faq.html

dominicm14:03:16

That's awesome. What is java's powerpc support like these days?

dominicm14:03:08

I've been looking at pine a lot lately. The hard rock looks perfect for my media Center.

Samuel14:03:45

No first-hand experience, but operation details for java are wrapped up in tacit knowledge (EDIT: that is, it seems to be working with parity to x86); some great resources for power9 & java stuff I've found recently: on porting: https://developer.ibm.com/linuxonpower/porting-guide/plan/ general development things: https://developer.ibm.com/linuxonpower/ java: • https://developer.ibm.com/linuxonpower/search/?q=java • https://developer.ibm.com/linuxonpower/2018/04/20/key-considerations-java-performance-power9/ POWER devwiki: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/wikis/home?lang=en#!/wiki/Power%20Systems/page/IBM%20PowerVM

thomas15:03:53

IBM supports Java on Power big time... it is a very important platform for them.

thomas15:03:22

not sure about free versions though and how you would get them. Maybe OpenJDK is available.

thomas15:03:55

I always enjoyed working on AIX boxes and Power Linux boxes.

dominicm14:03:14

I think I've read it was a java 11 target.

Samuel14:03:16

yeah openJDK have been on this train for the best part of a decade https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/PPCAIXPort

Ben Hammond14:03:03

SCHOOL'S OUT FOR THE SUMMER

parrot 4
dominicm14:03:53

Kids on YouTube videos rejoice

dominicm14:03:32

Not sure if my neighbor will keep being paid. She takes kids to school. Her husband is off work from surgery.

dotemacs14:03:19

In the other news, the new iPad is out with a case that has almost all the keyboard keys and a touch pad, so it might be worth porting Emacs to it \o/

dominicm17:03:47

@accounts259 have you seen the pinetab?

Samuel10:03:14

Yeah, looking pretty nice on the ARM platform, the standard concerns about horsepower & ARM jump out, which is a bit of a problem for source-based *NIX distributions, but it's a great step to see vendors tending towards FOSS hardware too.

Samuel10:03:57

My concern though, at least from what we're seeing today, is that higher performance ARM SoC's seem to be lacking extensibility, thus upgradeability, which is not a great tradeoff considering the poor performance-per-watt. Of course, this is a great step away from intel/amd, and allows a better set of choices by providing better defaults, but pernicious licensing models are not just about legal restrictions, but a set of fundamentally restrictive decisions that have ramifications to our privacy and security - not least the ability to build and sign firmware, audit source code, and modify and distribute derivations of the original without prejudice.

dharrigan17:03:11

any recommends for a good wireframing tool/website? (mostly focused towards website wireframing, less so mobile phone wireframing)

Ben Hammond17:03:35

I used to really like balsamiq; but then they went wierd with the free app (so I suppose that's not much help)

dharrigan18:03:42

seems simple

dharrigan18:03:49

Simple == good

dominicm18:03:14

I used to use ninja

guy19:03:08

I really liked wireframe

3Jane21:03:28

uh... so they're gonna shut down London soon, looks like

seancorfield21:03:15

Doesn't surprise me. Lockdown is pretty much the only way to slow the spread enough that we don't completely overwhelm the healthcare system.

seancorfield21:03:39

I think we'll see it in all big cities around the world fairly soon. Maybe even country-wide everywhere.

seancorfield21:03:13

And I'm seeing talk from health professionals that it may last for months, rather than weeks.

mccraigmccraig06:03:47

until there is a vaccine. 12-18 months

mccraigmccraig06:03:39

it roughly concludes that there is no good solution, only bad and worse

mccraigmccraig06:03:53

mitigation (herd immunity) doesn't work without overwhelming ICUs

mccraigmccraig06:03:15

suppression works, but as soon as you stop it infections rebound

mccraigmccraig06:03:33

so we're looking at continual suppression, maybe on/off, until there's a vaccine

yogidevbear08:03:10

Morning. Looks like the first human clinical trials for a vaccine are already underway in both China and the USA. I think that's pretty unprecedented. Will still be many months before a vaccine makes its way to the general population though.

mccraigmccraig10:03:40

i know, i mean if the modelling had shown that there was a mitigation approach which could keep the ICU load tenable then maybe it would be a viable strategy... but choosing that strategy before having any such modelling results was clearly very risky

minimal10:03:10

As Richard Horton says it was always obvious how many deaths that could involve. Neil Ferguson who cowrote the paper (and prob has covid-19 now) says that their worst case mitigation outcome became the best case when they updated the data.

jiriknesl22:03:37

So they’re closing schools now. I hope, whole UK won’t close. Wednesday Morning we fly to Dubrovnik. Zero cases in 50km radius there.

rickmoynihan09:03:34

Assuming you know; but the FCO is recommending essentially no non-essential foreign travel - as you might not get back for the foreseeable: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice

minimal10:03:25

Croatia also has compulsory 14 days isolation for visitors as they understandably don’t want us to infect them

jiriknesl22:03:58

We had tickets to Bari (Italy). Cancelled.

jiriknesl23:03:21

So we bought ones to Dubrovnik through Warsaw. Cancelled.

jiriknesl23:03:37

Hopefully, we’ll get there with a direct flight with BritAirw.