Amazon’s kindle-direct now has Canadian manufacturing

December 14, 2019 Geometric Algebra for Electrical Engineers , ,

As a “kdp” author, I got an email about new Canadian manufacturing for kindle-direct orders (i.e. my Geometric Algebra book and various UofT physics and engineering class notes compilations.)

Here’s a fragment of that email:

“We’re excited to announce paperback manufacturing in Canada! This enables new features for KDP authors, including:

    • Faster shipping to your readers in Canada. Manufacturing in Canada enables FREE Two-Day Shipping for Prime Members.

…

Please note that, as of today, proof copies and author orders for authors in Canada will still be printed and shipped from the US.”

With the low price that I set my book prices at, paying just the US shipping for an “author proof” has been about the same as ordering a normal copy, so now there will really be no point to ordering proofs anymore.

Interesting z/OS (clang based) compiler release notes.

December 13, 2019 C/C++ development and debugging. , , , ,

The release notes for the latest z/OS C/C++ compiler are interesting.  When I was at IBM they were working on “clangtana”, a clang frontend melded with the legacy TOBY backend.  This really surprised me, but was consistent with the fact that the IBM compiler guys kept saying that they were continually losing their internal funding — that project was a clever way to do more with less resources.  I think they’d made the clangtana switch for zLinux by the time I left, with AIX to follow once they had resolved some ABI incompatibility issues.  At the time, I didn’t know (nor care) about the status of that project on z/OS.

Well, years later, it looks like they’ve now switched to a clang based compiler frontend on z/OS too.  This major change appears to have a number of side effects that I can imagine will be undesirable to existing mainframe customers:

  • Compiler now requires POSIX(ON) and Unix System Services.  No more compilation using JCL.
  • Compiler support for 31-bit applications appears to be dropped (64-bit only!)
  • Support for C, FASTLINK, and OS linkage conventions has been dropped (XPLINK only.)
  • Only ibm-1047 is supported for both source and runtime character set encoding.
  • C89 support appears to have been dropped.
  • Hex floating support has been dropped.
  • No decimal floating point support.
  • SIMD support isn’t implemented.
  • Metal C support has been dropped.

i.e. if you want C++14, you have to be willing to give up a lot to get it.  They must be using an older clang, because this “new” compiler doesn’t include C++17 support.  I’m surprised that they didn’t even manage multiple character set support for this first compiler release.

It is interesting that they’ve also dropped IPA and PDF support, and that the optimization options have changed.  Does that mean that they’ve actually not only dropped the old Montana frontend, but also gutted the whole backend, switching to clang exclusively?

weird match.com identity theft?

November 29, 2019 Incoherent ramblings , , , ,

My gmail inbox was filled with “Like” emails from various guys this morning, and it appeared that somebody had created a new match.com profile using my gmail address:

Weirder still, the identity using my email address, was that of a woman:

I don’t understand the motivation of using my email address, since I was able to use that email address to submit a password change.  At that point, I was able to see that the profile was for somebody purporting to be an Australian.

In the time between changing that passsword to lock out the originator of this profile, and switching it to ‘not visible’, the password appears to be reset again.  I’m not sure how that would be possible given that the password change confirmation emails were going to my gmail account.

This made me wonder if match.com is populating itself with fake profiles, and they’ve now switched this one to use a different email address?  That theory seems to be substantiated by the following article about an FTC law suite against match.com for the use of fake profiles.  Looks like their angle is getting people to purchase paid subscriptions after seeing that there was interest in the fake profiles they generated:

“According to the FTC’s complaint, Match sent emails to nonsubscribers stating that someone had expressed an interest in that consumer. Specifically, when nonsubscribers with free accounts received likes, favorites, emails, and instant messages on Match.com, they also received emailed ads from Match encouraging them to subscribe to Match.com to view the identity of the sender and the content of the communication.”

Assuming that this case is not yet resolved, it’s pretty clumsy of match.com to continue to play the same scam.  It’s also pretty clumsy of them to use a female identity for me, but I guess my name is non-standard enough that they didn’t know what to do with it (either that, or they just take a lazy 50/50 chance when creating their fake profiles.)

 

EDIT: managed to re-reset the password, long enough to figure out how to shut down the identity.   Before I did so, I grabbed a screen shot of “my” profile:

I see that the “Profile Hidden” that I selected the first time I logged in was still selected.  I also tried changing the email address associated with this profile to one that I use only for spam, but match.com won’t allow that without also knowing the birthday that they used to create the fake profile.

Clocker: A nice world clock app for the mac

November 14, 2019 mac , ,

Our company is scattered to the wind around the world, and I’m often left wondering “what time is it there, right now?”

There’s lots of world clock apps and websites available, but I’m really liking clocker for this at the moment.  Here’s my current view of the local times for my colleagues

( I often work with people in Brussels, Paris, and the UK too, but that’s all in the Zurich timezone. )

 

My first “nigerian scammer” email in German

November 13, 2019 Just for fun

Is this any more believable auf Deutsch?

Guten Tag,

Es tut mir leid, Sie in dieser Angelegenheit ohne Ihre vorherige Zustimmung zu kontaktieren. Es war wegen der Dringlichkeit der Angelegenheit.

Ich bin Desmond OGEGEREGE, ein Rechtsanwalt, und der persönliche Anwalt von ein verstorbener Kunde aus Ihrem Land. Ich würde gerne wissen, ob wir zusammenarbeiten können in diese Transaktion?

Seit dem Tod meines Mandanten, sein Fonds im Wert Millionen in Dollar, in der Bank meines Landes ruhend gewesen. Die Bank hat mir eine Mitteilung gemacht, um die nächsten Angehörigen für die Forderung der Fonds zu präsentieren, andernfalls werden die Gelder beschlagnahmt.

Der Verstorbene starb bei einem Autounfall mit seiner ganzen Familie. Ich schreibe Ihnen in dieser Angelegenheit, weil Sie den gleichen Familiennamen wie der Verstorbene haben, daher können Sie an die Bank als mein verstorbener Kunde nächsten Angehörigen vorgestellt werden. Mit meiner Unterstützung als der verstorbene persönliche Anwalt, können Sie von der Bank genehmigt werden und das Geld wird Ihnen freigegeben werden.

Ich freue mich auf Ihre Antwort, wenn Sie interessiert sind und ich werde Ihnen weitere Details senden.

Google translate says this is:

Good day,

I am sorry to contact you in this matter without your prior consent. It was because of the urgency of the matter.

I am Desmond OGEGEREGE, a lawyer, and the personal advocate of a deceased customer from your country. I would like to know if we can work together in this transaction?

Since the death of my client, his fund worth millions in dollars, has been resting in the bank of my country. The bank has sent me a message to present the next of kin for claiming the funds, otherwise the funds will be confiscated.

The deceased died in a car accident with his entire family. I am writing to you on this matter because you have the same surname as the deceased, therefore you can be introduced to the bank as my deceased customer next of kin. With my support as the late personal attorney, you can be approved by the bank and the money will be released to you.

I look forward to your answer, if you are interested and I will send you further details.

The little bit of German that I learned to read Euler’s books at the math library 25 years ago, aren’t enough for me to reply, but let’s see if they also speak english.