While its funding is not great, English Heritage protects hundreds of historic buildings and other heritage sites. They're a government-funded quango, attached to the DCMS. There are equivalents in Wales and Scotland.
Indeed. Syria is the only place I've been to in the middle east where if someone comes up to you and offers you tea or wants a chat, it's not just because they want to sell you something. They really are that friendly. If you believed the US State Department you'd think they were all terrorists and fanatics. They're even friendly to Americans, Brits and Danes.
It sounds unlikely, but Bashar isn't really to blame here. He was never meant to be president. His brother was groomed for the role, but died in a car accident. When Hafez died, Bashar was working as an eye doctor in London. He was rushed back to inherit a job he never wanted. After he took control he quickly put in place measures to liberalise the country, loosening restriction on freedom of speech among others. However, this didn't last long. it soon became clear that he was not the one with the power. The real leaders were the senior official of the Baath Party who had been put in place by his father. They clamped down and reversed his reforms.
While he is the one whose face is on posters on the side of every building and on the wall of every shop and home, he's not in charge. There's obviously a lot of brainwashing going on, but he really does seem to be very popular in Syria. A lot of this is bread and circuses: people generally have a good quality of life, so tend to ignore the politics.
In any case, Syria is a beautiful country, with incredibly friendly people. It's sad to see stories like this, but there are signs of improvement in the regime. Even the fact that he had a trial and had his sentence reduced is a progress. It's unlikely he would have had that under Hafez. Despite the recent furore over the alleged nuclear reactor, there seems to be signs of progress towards peace with Israel. Only a couple of weeks ago, Turkey's president Erdogan was brokering talks about a possibly treaty. Time will tell.
To be fair, we have been on staff picks, but as we went up on there in November when AIR was still in beta others have taken our place. Unfortunately that did mean we got a lot less visibility from it than if we were up there now AIR has actually been released! Stuff like ours is certainly in the minority though. I think is primarily because most AIR developers have a web background, and the apps are based on web apps. Our was ported from Java, so we're starting from a different standpoint. Perhaps as AIR gets more mature you'll see more developers like us using thye platform. It has been a joy to develop with Flex and AIR. Actionscript (ECMAScript 4) is a lovely language, and Flex reminds me of Cocoa/Objective C in a good way.
Like Dashboard, Gadgets etc, it's easy to develop simple AIR apps. This obviously means that there are a lot of those sort of apps available. This doesn't mean they all are. I may humbly submit my app as an example of a less basic one. It does panoramic image stitching, so has machine vision, image processing and that sort of stuff. Not the sort of thing you can do in Dashboard or Gadgets. Incidentally, I've released some of the image processing and maths stuff in our Actionscript library. It has support for bicubic and bilinear interpolation, histogram stretching, and a partial port of the JAMA matrix algebra library.
It may actually be possible to create a PDF viewer using AIR. It has some native support for the format, which means you may be able to create a lighter-weight app which uses this. Significantly, Adobe have said that they plan to move their apps gradually over to AIR, so this could mean that Photoshop and others may finally be available for Linux.
If you install an AIR app, it can install the runtime at the same time. It's pretty transparent, and certainly better than stuff like the Java installer with Web Start. Also, if any company can build an install base it's Adobe. Look at the penetration of Flash.
It's not a browser plugin. They are desktop apps, so it's not massively different from any other apps you download - i.e. only install them from sites that you trust. They all have to be signed by the developer (not by adobe, it's ok. you can use your own cert), so there's a bit more piece of mind than you'd get with many apps you may download. At least you know the real world identity of the developers.
It was only released last month (though it's been in beta since last June) but there are already some significant apps like ebay desktop. For loads more, of varying significance, see here. Also, I can shameless plug mine
Not totally objective (see my sig), but I'll try. AIR makes it a lot easier for web developers to create apps on the desktop. You can write apps in either Flash, Flex (now open source) or HTML and Javascript. While it's damn near impossible to create a UI in Java that doesn't look like a PoS (yeah, gross generalisation, but that's my experience), AIR makes it very easy. While stuff like Java Web Start never seemed to work smoothly, AIR integrates really well with web pages (you can do stuff like launch and install apps from the browser). I realise that much of these are benefits for the develop rather than the end user, but this obviously means that it will bring benefits to users in terms of the kind of apps developed.
This is excellent news. We've never had the resources to port our panoramic image stitcher to Linux, but as it's now an AIR app, this means we get it for free. I can finally use my own app on Ubuntu!
Anyone who hasn't taken a look at AIR yet should seriously check it out, especially now that Flex is open source.
I don't get why so many people in the US talk like universal healthcare is some far-out radical idea that could never work in practice. It works pretty well in almost every other rich country in the world (and several poorer ones).
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The betting markets agree with you. On Betfair he's one of the favourites, behind Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney.
Well, actually Camelot takes far less than is given to the "good causes". But the point about Camelot being shitty still stands.
While its funding is not great, English Heritage protects hundreds of historic buildings and other heritage sites. They're a government-funded quango, attached to the DCMS. There are equivalents in Wales and Scotland.
If the government won't spare the money to protect Stonehenge of all places, it's unsurprising that other stuff is neglected too.
Indeed. Syria is the only place I've been to in the middle east where if someone comes up to you and offers you tea or wants a chat, it's not just because they want to sell you something. They really are that friendly. If you believed the US State Department you'd think they were all terrorists and fanatics. They're even friendly to Americans, Brits and Danes.
It sounds unlikely, but Bashar isn't really to blame here. He was never meant to be president. His brother was groomed for the role, but died in a car accident. When Hafez died, Bashar was working as an eye doctor in London. He was rushed back to inherit a job he never wanted. After he took control he quickly put in place measures to liberalise the country, loosening restriction on freedom of speech among others. However, this didn't last long. it soon became clear that he was not the one with the power. The real leaders were the senior official of the Baath Party who had been put in place by his father. They clamped down and reversed his reforms.
While he is the one whose face is on posters on the side of every building and on the wall of every shop and home, he's not in charge. There's obviously a lot of brainwashing going on, but he really does seem to be very popular in Syria. A lot of this is bread and circuses: people generally have a good quality of life, so tend to ignore the politics.
In any case, Syria is a beautiful country, with incredibly friendly people. It's sad to see stories like this, but there are signs of improvement in the regime. Even the fact that he had a trial and had his sentence reduced is a progress. It's unlikely he would have had that under Hafez. Despite the recent furore over the alleged nuclear reactor, there seems to be signs of progress towards peace with Israel. Only a couple of weeks ago, Turkey's president Erdogan was brokering talks about a possibly treaty. Time will tell.
Silverlight isn't competing with AIR. It's browser-based; a competitor of Flash.
Yes, they bought Macromedia, so they have their staff, skills etc. They did pretty well with PDF though, which is #2 among plugins.
You can use prototype-based programming in AS3 if you really want to. You'll find the prototype property right there in Object.
It's the MPL.
AIR only shows it as trusted if Thawte or Verisign are in the chain, who have pretty stringent requirements for the code-signing certs.
To be fair, we have been on staff picks, but as we went up on there in November when AIR was still in beta others have taken our place. Unfortunately that did mean we got a lot less visibility from it than if we were up there now AIR has actually been released! Stuff like ours is certainly in the minority though. I think is primarily because most AIR developers have a web background, and the apps are based on web apps. Our was ported from Java, so we're starting from a different standpoint. Perhaps as AIR gets more mature you'll see more developers like us using thye platform. It has been a joy to develop with Flex and AIR. Actionscript (ECMAScript 4) is a lovely language, and Flex reminds me of Cocoa/Objective C in a good way.
It's a runtime. There is no UI apart from the installer.
Like Dashboard, Gadgets etc, it's easy to develop simple AIR apps. This obviously means that there are a lot of those sort of apps available. This doesn't mean they all are. I may humbly submit my app as an example of a less basic one. It does panoramic image stitching, so has machine vision, image processing and that sort of stuff. Not the sort of thing you can do in Dashboard or Gadgets. Incidentally, I've released some of the image processing and maths stuff in our Actionscript library. It has support for bicubic and bilinear interpolation, histogram stretching, and a partial port of the JAMA matrix algebra library.
Too many double-negatives in my sentence. Simplified: Making good interfaces in Java: damn near impossible. Making good interfaces in AIR: very easy.
It may actually be possible to create a PDF viewer using AIR. It has some native support for the format, which means you may be able to create a lighter-weight app which uses this. Significantly, Adobe have said that they plan to move their apps gradually over to AIR, so this could mean that Photoshop and others may finally be available for Linux.
If you install an AIR app, it can install the runtime at the same time. It's pretty transparent, and certainly better than stuff like the Java installer with Web Start. Also, if any company can build an install base it's Adobe. Look at the penetration of Flash.
It's not a browser plugin. They are desktop apps, so it's not massively different from any other apps you download - i.e. only install them from sites that you trust. They all have to be signed by the developer (not by adobe, it's ok. you can use your own cert), so there's a bit more piece of mind than you'd get with many apps you may download. At least you know the real world identity of the developers.
It was only released last month (though it's been in beta since last June) but there are already some significant apps like ebay desktop. For loads more, of varying significance, see here. Also, I can shameless plug mine
Not totally objective (see my sig), but I'll try. AIR makes it a lot easier for web developers to create apps on the desktop. You can write apps in either Flash, Flex (now open source) or HTML and Javascript. While it's damn near impossible to create a UI in Java that doesn't look like a PoS (yeah, gross generalisation, but that's my experience), AIR makes it very easy. While stuff like Java Web Start never seemed to work smoothly, AIR integrates really well with web pages (you can do stuff like launch and install apps from the browser). I realise that much of these are benefits for the develop rather than the end user, but this obviously means that it will bring benefits to users in terms of the kind of apps developed.
This is excellent news. We've never had the resources to port our panoramic image stitcher to Linux, but as it's now an AIR app, this means we get it for free. I can finally use my own app on Ubuntu! Anyone who hasn't taken a look at AIR yet should seriously check it out, especially now that Flex is open source.
Do you feel the same about all taxes then?
I don't get why so many people in the US talk like universal healthcare is some far-out radical idea that could never work in practice. It works pretty well in almost every other rich country in the world (and several poorer ones).
It already is.
I looked up "monolopy" and "monolopist", but can't find it. Which dictionary did you look in?