^^^

They'll get less from you if you make the downpayment

Yeah, don't need to pay that thing... what's it called again? PMI.

@Iszi Yes, yes, I'm not good enough to be your son, we've been through this like 100 times in the past.

Anyone else ever notice that, when it comes to most laws that exist internationally, the "$Law in the US" section of Wikipedia articles is usually bigger than the one for any other country - and it's usually as big as several or all of them combined?

No need to bring it ONCE again.

@Iszi We have more lazy people with time on their hands to correct things on Wikipedia than most countries. We also complain the most about laws.

@Iszi Most wikis are in English... and there are... the thing.

@RoraΖ Yeah, wasn't that like Rule 0 in the Constitution or something? ;-)

the thing ™

I wonder how the countries would look if ranked by "legal professionals per capita".

@Iszi As of 1911: 281 per 100,000 population

Japan has 11 per 100,000

Also, tentmaker.org/Quotes/lawyers-per-capita.html

what...

I inadvertently linked to a religious site

answers.com/Q/…

@MarkBuffalo pfft

> Laws create law-breakers. More laws create more law-breakers.

I'm 14 and this is deep

@Ohnana Yeah. By stating "thou shall not kill", God created murder.

> 8) France Lawyers:45,686 Pop: 64MM P/L: 1,403

@TildalWave looks like much fun was had a B-Sides twitter.com/hashtag/…

+ scottish invasion!

@RоryMcCune When you say "pretty good" what you mean is "awesome". £90k is a lot of money.

Like you said, though, in London you can subtract an inordinate amount just for living.

@diagprov yeah ... but London! and Banking!

@diagprov How much does it cost to live in London?

still shows that demand is pretty high at the moment

@MarkBuffalo alot... lol

@MarkBuffalo I have no idea (as I have never personally lived there), but for any given job in the UK, the equivalent in London will pay you more. In the civil service for example this is even formally named the "london weighting".

@MarkBuffalo indiatoday.intoday.in/education/story/…

Most expensive city in the world

more expensive than San Francisco

WTF

$112k per person per year costs

lol @ Shanghai being up on that list, though

Costs really depend on lifestyle too. If you want to buy a house and your expectations as to what constitutes a house.

I was able to live in Shanghai on $400 per month

For example, there was an article a few weeks back about some property developer selling windowless apartments.

if your tolerance for long packed train journeys is high, it can be cheaper :)

@diagprov uhm

theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/17/… <-- £360k for a garage!

@MarkBuffalo (FT paywall, sorry) ft.com/cms/s/0/57760dee-dcb3-11e5-827d-4dfbe0213e07.html (title is: Flats with no windows on sale in London for £465,000)

albeit that's chelsea

Flats with no windows on sale in London for £465,000

...?

google.com/…

^paywall bypass

@RоryMcCune firewall blocked

BTW any news site you want to bypass paywall, just news.google.com search for title, click link :)

they always let google referers in

sneaky

wtf

£525,000 for a two-bedroom flat?

@MarkBuffalo welcome to London.

Well I saw a home in Huntington Beach, 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom. $935,000

London is frickin' insane

One parking space sold for £360,000

rofl

Last year most property sales in Kensington And Chelsea involved flats which sold for on average £1,443,167

average... flat... price.... $2052255 USD

Do you have to pay crazed property taxes...?

@MarkBuffalo there's stamp duty but it's not that high

IIRC the max is 3%

@RоryMcCune Is that 3% per year, forever?

@RоryMcCune council tax might be fun though.

@MarkBuffalo no no, one off tax for purchase of property

@MarkBuffalo one time cost on purchase you have council tax but that's not that high

that's good. American property taxes can be insane in some place

Yay. Have landed in Insane Village

My uncle pays $500 per month, despite paying off his mortgage 12 years ago

@diagprov IIRC council tax maxes out at a couple of thou. peanuts when you're paying over a mill. for your flat

@RоryMcCune I dunno, maybe? There's also potential leasehold, and if you're paying for a flat you might have some kind of hard-to-avoid communal charges too.

Hi EVERYONE!

@diagprov yeah max council tax in kensignton is £2124.66 per year

@RоryMcCune I hope their bins are solid gold for that, though.

@Iszi not good dude. Hope it ends well...

@RoryAlsop Big! Smoke! what area you staying in this time?

Haven't checked yet. Southwark maybe. Different place next week.

Crestcon is at Lincoln's inn fields so think Southwark is reasonably near

@RoryAlsop you down for a bit?

@Iszi Damn dude... sorry to hear about all the crap that's happening.

@Iszi go to the frigging doctor's

@MarkBuffalo we have some things like that too, with leasehold property (usually, but not always, flats). I don't think leasehold fees are typically that high in the UK though.

@RoryAlsop The infosec industry should (slightly ironically) sponsor a ".con" tld. Both to register for people's .com spelling mistakes and for the sheer number of conferences it has.

www.bankofamerica.con

fun times.

Oh which Rory was talking about SMS banking security the other day? @RоryMcCune @RoryAlsop ? Apparently German banks and seemingly Swiss ones too are starting to deploy this: cronto.com

@silverpenguin wat, why are you telling me this

@AviD what did i miss?

ah, I see.

you had said "I have not programmed a real application in weeks", so I mockingly said, no real application, just a PHP one. :D

@RоryMcCune tomorrow, and then Tuesday

GADDAMMIT YOU GUISE

someone went and upvoated me

@diagprov problem is: customers hate physical tokens. UK has had them for ages and huge push to get folks onto SMS ...

Personally, I really like smart card readers and RSA tokens

I just repcapped 3rd time in a row off the back of a worthless trivial answer. #humblebrag

I don't deserve it.

@RoryAlsop They have a mobile app, which they've used to mitigate this. I don't own a physical token, instead I have an app on my android phone :(

@RoryAlsop Me too.

@diagprov I like this best. no additional device, no pseudo-factor, no security theatre.

@diagprov the usual standard in Germany is indexed TAN lists or by generating the TAN using a display reader and your banking card

@SEJPM That's what this does, generates a TAN, which you need to input into the online banking. Rather than lists, though, it takes an initial barcode then a barcode per action (login, approve transaction).

@SEJPM That's how the UK was when I was there.

@AviD but I feel so James Bond using a smartcard ;)

@diagprov this is basically the same we have deployed at the largest bank in Germany but without the need for the banking card and with replacing the dedicated 5$ reader with a smartphone app :/

I don't like this solution (app based)

@diagprov instead, have a shaken martini and a variety of skanky women.

If Steve Jobs was reincarnated into a Chinese family he would be old enough to be making iPhones now.

@AviD PHP is real! and my last application was actually in python! 3:

I built an application to handle communication with APIs and install software and firmware onto networking devices via serial cable and wifi :<

pokes out tongue

@silverpenguin That sounds fun. Do you have au... never mind.

(I do too, I think)

chipTAN FTW.

I took a test online once, and it said I have autism

@MarkBuffalo did you even answer honestly?

@MarkBuffalo maybe you do?

@MarkBuffalo are you funny about your food?

@silverpenguin No, I can eat anything

I cant eat fruit and veg because the textures drive me mental

a friend of mine is savagely autistic, and can only eat hamburgers

and veg taste nasty

@RoryAlsop @MarkBuffalo Thanks. It's one over-complicated bag of hell with issues getting stacked upon issues, and whatever's on top of the pile effectively keeps us from working on anything lower despite all of them being of near-equal criticality in their own way.

@MarkBuffalo I onyl eat meat, rice, potatos, 1 type of bean and cheese... that is basically it ... oh and bread

I LIKE PIZZA

yep, photoTan was what I was referring to. chipTAN is what I have for my UK bank, which is probably better but as Rory was saying customers don't like so much (need extra device).

@MickLH and that is why you are a smart man

well my friend is amazing... and awesome

<3

like me :D

@MarkBuffalo suggest to you friend about trying narcotics >_> if he wants to feel like a real person

@diagprov massive security gain > slight inconvenience

@silverpenguin uhm.... no?

@MarkBuffalo :<

Actually tbh @silverpenguin I think my research in mathematics and engineering is a better justification for feeling intelligent, than my work in the field of pizza-eating

@MickLH nope

I mean, pizzas are the fucking shit! Don't get me wrong.

@MickLH mathematics, as in... if i eat 1 slice i have 13 slices left?

@SEJPM I don't disagree, I prefer it. Unfortunately we in this room are probably in the minority because we know and understand why it is worthwhile to have.

@silverpenguin there's my result from this morning, it's pretty representative of the kind of stuff I like

@MickLH ok but what does this formular relate, its just crap without context!

@MickLH I understood some of these letters

@MickLH fancy

@MickLH Using the gamma function notation for an integral argument might be a bit over-fancy.

@ThomasPornin Did someone say Gamma?

@MarkBuffalo lower right corner, a big capital greek gamma

The relationship to anything in the real world is convoluted

@MickLH what field (excuse pun) of mathematics is this?

@MickLH You're convoluted.

@MarkBuffalo Γ(x) = (x-1)! when x is an integer

@ThomasPornin It's not arbitrary though! It actually fell out of the series on its own as the natural solution

@ThomasPornin ...radiation...

@ThomasPornin and really funny if it doesn't :D

Gamma Radiation... The Hulk... ah, for... forget it. :(

@SEJPM But here that's applied to floor(x) so the argument is always integral...

@diagprov I think it's just calculus, though treating the ceiling function inside the integrand made it quite horrible

@ThomasPornin I saw that, but wanted to annotate that the gamma function is much "funnier" if the argument is not an integer for those here not knowing the function

@MickLH yea well ... (√a * √b)^2 = C

@MarkBuffalo !?

ikr?

@SEJPM File transfers, then lies and says it doesn't...

Or file doesn't transfer, and lies and says it does

why would it lie?

Because it's a lying bitch!

because the logic in the code is wrong

and must be fixored

@MarkBuffalo I apply the rule of "nobody has complained about it so it's not important".

@diagprov My rule is this: all bugs will eventually cause problems, and must be squashed to save cash money.

@RоryMcCune heh brilliant! :) it's not too bad, we could accept more Scots

Ok someone please write a book for programmers, titled: "Debugging: From fuxx0r'd to fix'd."

@MarkBuffalo prioritatisation > perfection

@SEJPM Only mediocre developers don't fix their mistakes

@MarkBuffalo even really good devs won't fix them if there's more important stuff to do / to fix

and bugs are relatively easy to fix if you catch them early enough... like HIV. you want to stop it from becoming full-blown programming AIDS

Have fun with entropy ;D

@MarkBuffalo your words paint only beautiful potraits

I think, like usual, the compromise is the most reasonable stance

@MarkBuffalo You're assuming the developer has a choice. When we're told "nobody has complained about this so it is not important" this is The One True Law.

@silverpenguin he's really a grumpy buffalo ... a gruffalo :)

<= finishes work quickly, has more than enough time to spend on bugs / penetration testing / exploits / risk and threat analysis, etc

If there's a 99% chance that the known bug will never be invoked, it might be more cost effective to just change the specification such that it specifically disallows the bugged case.

@MickLH I always make sure my code works 100% before even pushing it

so I can't relate at all to people who don't do that.

Not that I want to get into it, but that's basically irrelevant to my point

I understand what you're trying to say, yea

@MarkBuffalo why would someone push code without checking it works? well unless you need to save progress of course

Exciting day today, with a bot beating Lee Sedol.

save progress, yeah. that's a good reason. sometimes I do that d:

Ok fine, I want to get into it... It can work 100% yet still have some corner case that would be intuitively expected to function consistently but in reality is not handled correctly. This corner case might be something that is never used and now it's a philosophical question until it's confirmed or denied whether or not that corner case is actually required

@CodesInChaos first of five rounds

@MickLH That corner case may not be your issue

It may be someone else's issue

What's a bit annoying about go is that you can't tell what's going on as an observer. Looking at the final board where Lee resigned, I can't even tell who's ahead.

Oh also, don't get me wrong. I am totally on that perfectionist-elitist trip.

I was simply being sarcastic about the usual response I get. I understand expediency.

@MarkBuffalo this is a silly statement

@kalina You're a silly statement

no u

The bug I found was UTF-8 string length calcs. I can build strings whose length is misreported (as much longer than it is).

no ur

NO

@diagprov mb_strlen()?

that's right change the subject

I just, well honestly sometimes I don't feel like a gig pays enough for me to go above and beyond. In that case I meet the requirements and write a list of problems they will encounter in the future because of somebody assuming too much about the code's function, as opposed to defensively coding for those situations in advance.

@MickLH I go above and beyond no matter how much I'm paid. This creates a winning mindset that will extinguish my enemies after burning them to a crisp

@MarkBuffalo no it's a custom internally written function.

tl;dr If you want my best code, get the support contract with it.

@MarkBuffalo you still just basically said you've never written a single bug

@diagprov Well, if you try to get the length of a non-normal string (unicode, UTF-8, etc), you will get different data... so you need to use something like mb_strlen() or something.

@kalina I've made lots of bugs. I also fix them through rigorous testing

even so you're not all knowing enough to know it will work 100% of the time

@MarkBuffalo non-normal? Ok let me explain - I can provide a valid UTF-8 encoded string by deliberately editing it, such that the function gives the wrong length, as checked against ICU :)

Yeah, because it's checking the unicode value instead

@kalina I'm sure I've made countless errors, but never when it's important.

And the code is fixed

@MarkBuffalo yes, this function is supposed to return the length in characters of the string, so is the icu function. They don't match.

Yays

@diagprov Which language is this?

@MickLH you've never made an "important" mistake?

@MarkBuffalo C.

@kalina "Bug-free code" is basically my main product

@diagprov ah, ok. not too experienced with that

I consider code bug free when I've proven logically that every possible input pattern results in a desired output pattern

@MarkBuffalo C strings aren't. That is they're just arrays of bytes, so you're right, if you try strlen on a UTF-8 string you won't see what you expect, since some characters might be multi-byte. In this case, the custom function is trying to do that decoding into unicode, and gets it wrong.

@MickLH a desired or the desired?

Sometimes it's stochastic

But yes usually it's "the"

So if I construct the right string, composed of say 5 unicode characters, this function reports 8. I'm trying to work out if I can use that :)

@MickLH ah but before you were like always 100% guaranteed and now you're like usually

@MickLH you realise if you actually were able to write entirely bug-free code you'd be like the only programmer on the planet capable of that (well apart, apparently, from @MarkBuffalo)

@kalina I never retracted the 100% guarantee, I only clarified politely

you two should start a programming company guaranteeing 100% bug free code, I bet you'd get customers if you could prove that

@RоryMcCune Hey now, I never tried to say my code was 100% bug free... ok, I didn't mean to say that. I mean, I test all of my code rigorously and make sure it works. If I discover a bug later, I fix it.

:p

His stance is that he just ignores the bug and gets buffer overflowed out the bunghole without TP

@MarkBuffalo ah I thought you were in with @MickLH on the 100% bug free platform

@kalina I DIDN'T MEAN TO SAY THAT

I'M RETARDED

oh now you didn't mean to say that

how convenient

Have you considered a career in politics?

@kalina very convenient. It's called backtracking / flipflopping

@MarkBuffalo bit of a bug in your statement there....

@RоryMcCune haha

@RоryMcCune Only when it's specifically required to be correct

@MickLH shouldn't that be implied?

@MickLH what some of the programs you have are ok with bugs?

Not to that extreme

"Oh, we didn't test this aircraft because the contract didn't specifically require it to be correct"

- MickLH

@kalina LMAO

where's @Simon when you need a pls.

@RоryMcCune pls, most of them are. By definition.

there he is

most of the bosses I'd had have tried explicitly pushing for lower quality.

@AviD it's rarely explicitly accepted though

@kalina oh hi!

@kalina lol, that wouldn't happen because I do a free consult if the person is just hiring me without precisely knowing exactly what they want from me

@RоryMcCune not in so many words.

@MickLH ah so you take advantage of people who don't know what they're after?

@MickLH ahh so there are no bugs, only "specification mistakes"

The opposite, actually

nice loophole

Not at all

@kalina sounds like he lets them take advantge of him

Like, insultingly wrong.

at least this one is trying unlike that @MarkBuffalo who just knew when he was beat and ran away

@AviD This has happened before, I had to "fire" the client

so much talk of fire

Most code I write is your normal, bug-prone code

@MickLH yeah, I've done that few times.

@MarkBuffalo was talking about burning to a crisp earlier

it's like you're teasing me -.-

first time was the hardest.

@kalina I'm really good at teasing

But ok here's an example where I didn't sign any kind of NDA lol, some guys needed some embedded device for digitally controlling a crane lift

@MarkBuffalo no you're not, you claim you are but once you get worked out you'll back down and claim you meant to spell testing or something

They were one of the "bug-free" clients, where every single line is rigorously checked for logical validity and conformance to the relevant specifications

I charge more for that.

A lot more?

I'm just hoping the crane didn't fall down and murder-suicide someone

Lol not yet

you say yet, but a minute ago you said bug free

Or theoretically ever, provided everyone else holds up their end of the specifications

HMMMM

that's also convenient

I can't program away a failed servo

@MarkBuffalo like that one in the middle of Manhattan couple months ago. Lucky it was a weekend, so it missed the crowds by a couple days.

a "failed servo" wouldn't have anything to do with the specifications

@AviD oh my goodness, that sounds horrible

hey mick, you're the kind of developer i looove to test for

@kalina Yes it would, the servo is specified to not fail under some conditions, if I stay strictly within those conditions at all times then it's not my fault.

because it's usually really easy to shred everything you've ever done

@Ohnana are you being evil or serious

oic

@MarkBuffalo nytimes.com/2016/02/06/nyregion/…

@Ohnana lol joking, jealousy, or actual arrogance?

@MickLH i'm dead serious

the client that says "we do rigorous testing and everything is perfect!!!" is the one that gets a 50 page report sent to them

I kinda figured, which is why I asked. Sorry, I'm not like you or whoever your friend is.

@RоryMcCune pls

I do not "test rigorously". I am highly against that actually.

@MickLH did you create a GUI interface using visual basic?

oh so you write perfect code and then don't test it?

@AviD :/ Anyone get hurt?

man

:[

someone died

@kalina Testing perfect code is, by definition, a waste of time.

@kalina double hacking is the answer.

yeah, but only one. If it had happened on a weekday - toll would have been dozens, if not hundreds.

@diagprov he tried to isolate the node and dump them on the other side of the router

but it was moving too fast

Man I need to stop making jokes

@MarkBuffalo when did you make a joke?

I made light of that kind of situation

even without that light I don't see how that is funny

it's more like a passing statement

an affirmation that perhaps you're capable of being normal

@Ohnana I hope you see our previous miscommunication more clearly now

a passing statement using a joking-ish description of a crane death

@MickLH nah i'm more confused. do you just assume that everything is perfect and then declare testing a waste of time?

@Ohnana those are the words that he said

False.

/tableflip

If you actually believe that those are the words I said, or even the concept I meant. Give up on understanding.

My method is much simpler and infinitely more conclusive than "rigorous testing", so it would be a waste to apply that in addition to it.

and yet you've managed to skirt around actually telling us what your "method" is

I'm typing...

for a developer you type slow

I've seen small children type faster than you on a mobile phone

I'm trying to make it simple for you tbh

tbh

wow simple? for me? I do declare!

In the same way you can prove the equivalence of mathematical expressions, you can bound the flow of an algorithm.

ah, i see. so you write inductive proofs for your algorithms and such to prove that your program works

Not just the algorithm, but each step of the implementation

we covered that in class in college. are you able to accurately represent real-world solutions for complex programs?

You'll have to ask more specifically, so that it's an actual relevant question instead of a loaded trick.

eh?

You're a loaded trick.

@MickLH you're writing a formal proof of your code's correctness for a non-trivial app....

Does your testing conclusively cover all potential use cases

can you do the proofs for complex programs?

I really doubt that

Of course? What am I missing from this question?

Are you asking me if I mean what I've been stating for the last, however long?

Yes. I mean what I said.

Are we no longer using threading?

that's pretty impressive, actually. the little proofs are a pain in the neck

do we ever use threading?

Usually we do.

@MickLH any public examples of your use of this method available then?

not since pls

wat

Those are not related at all.

pls rarely get threaded

it's entirely your fault

o lawd

you're responsible for the downfall of the culture of the DMZ with your stupid pls

w_o_w

there is a new wow expansion coming

@kalina people are still paying money for that bullshit?

millions of people

@RоryMcCune I'll see if the guy with the crane application would not mind if I open-sourced the firmware.

@MickLH just you're making some pretty impressive claims, from what little I know of the difficulty of formal mathematical proofs of real-world code

and doing it without a test suite

that's a fairly radical approach

I am not claiming to be the best in any way, I'm not saying it's "easy" or even that it comes naturally for me. I believe that any programmer could take their time and verify every single operation logically by the definition of the execution environment and the requirements of the task

@MickLH you're writing this in assembly?

And thank you, I consider my methods unorthodox

@RоryMcCune Usually C

once you get into C or higher, you'd need to take into account compiler issues

deterministic builds are another problem which sounds easy but has proven not to be

I avoid compiler issues altogether and stick strictly to the specification of the language. Though I do get paranoid and check the compiler output sometimes, if you call that "testing"