As a web application developer, this would certainly make my life much easier. I'd estimate that implementing work-arounds for IE can add 30 to 50% on to the initial HTML/CSS build, and IE specific issues add a fair amount of to ongoing support costs. This is for versions = IE8, I'm not sure if IE9 / 10 are better.
The delays were longer than 16 minutes... over an hour in most cases. There's the printing of the data, strapping it to the pigeon, scanning it back in, it all adds time.
I'm not sure if they increased timeouts to cope with the problem.
The term "git" is not used in the USA? I didn't know that. I just assumed it had the same meaning over there but nobody cared. After all, there is GIMP.
I have never liked the term "automagically". There's no need for it, because it is exactly the same as "automatically". Unless the user is somehow implying that magic is involved.
Just tried it. Very silly and not sure I would want to endure a long phone call in that position. The Nexus 7 weighs quite a bit more than a mobile phone.
> The colors in this image are not what a human standing on Mars would see — the presence of dust in the atmosphere would make the scene appear much redder. Instead, the pictures have been white-balanced to show how it would appear under typical Earth lighting conditions.
So the story is that a photo of Mars that has been adjusted so it looks like Earth to make it easier for geologists to interpret... looks like Earth. Wow.
> quite a few people have been asking me if it's possible to use the Wi-Fi-based Nexus 7 as a phone
Do these people own a Nexus 7 or have they even seen one? It wouldn't make a great phone.
It's too big to hold up to your ear and besides there isn't a speaker near the top. So that means you'd have to use it as a speaker phone. And as it only has wi-fi it's not as if you can use it on the go, unless you happen to be near a wi-fi hotspot or similar that you have access to - but using it handsfree in public isn't going to work well.
Despite all the talk of positive feedback, accuracy, key travel, etc. I find I get on best with an Apple keyboard, which has little feedback and almost no key travel (probably less so than a typical laptop keyboard).
It's quiet and effortless, and very comfortable to use. When I'm forced to use another keyboard (e.g. on-site at a customer's offices) I often find it way too noisy. In a quiet office it's almost embarrassing to type when there's a loud 'clack' sound with each key press.
On the contrary, Earth radii is a useful unit when explaining how close something came to the earth. It helps to form a mental picture.
For example, if you state that the moon is 384,400km from the earth, that doesn't really mean much - even if you know the diameter of the earth it's not as easy to form a mental picture as it is if you say that it is 62 Earth radii.
Personally though I would have thought diameters would be better than radii? I.e. the moon is 31 Earth diameters (or simply 31 'Earths') away. (As a side note I think that is much further than most people would guess it is).
Of course they wouldn't need to fork the code - it's possible to make use of new features in the operating system if available but fall back to the older methods.
Requiring Windows Vista/7 specific features will lock the browser to Windows and will make porting to other operating systems, should they choose to, difficult. As I said, other browsers have no problem making use of specific operating system features for acceleration and still being cross-platform.
Windows XP has a 25% share so is a long way from obsolete.
It's an interesting idea, although the percentage seems quite high particularly if they already support IE7 - ongoing efforts to maintain compatibility are probably not that expensive. It can be a real pain at the HTML/CSS build stage though.
I wonder instead if this is an attempt to get a bit of press coverage, like RyanAir who every now and then state they are going to do something outrageous like charge for using the toilet on their aircraft. They never go through with it, but it generates a lot of press interest and further promotes their image as a low cost no frills company.
Internet Explorer 9 and 10 are actually pretty awesome browsers.
That might be so, but I don't like them because I need Windows Vista or Windows 7 to be able to test my web apps with them, unlike most of the other browsers which are cross-platform. They are locked in to Microsoft and force developers to run Windows if they want to ensure compatibility. I can't even use the ancient Windows XP laptop I keep around for the IE6, 7, and 8 testing, because for some reason they've decided the newer browsers won't run on XP (for marketing rather than technical reasons I expect).
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That sounds promising. Unfortunately, at the moment we must still support Windows XP and IE8, but it is good to know that the situation will improve.
Who are these people that are only targeting Webkit?
As a web application developer, this would certainly make my life much easier. I'd estimate that implementing work-arounds for IE can add 30 to 50% on to the initial HTML/CSS build, and IE specific issues add a fair amount of to ongoing support costs. This is for versions = IE8, I'm not sure if IE9 / 10 are better.
Huge, yes - but not astronomically huge.
The delays were longer than 16 minutes... over an hour in most cases. There's the printing of the data, strapping it to the pigeon, scanning it back in, it all adds time.
I'm not sure if they increased timeouts to cope with the problem.
Isn't IP already delay tolerant? I remember in the IPoAC trial for obvious reasons there were huge delays, but it still worked.
Oh, OK, I must have assumed that. You're Swedish?
By the way GIT was developed by Linus Torvalds and he's Swedish, so it's not the USA we'd have to 'get back'.
The term "git" is not used in the USA? I didn't know that. I just assumed it had the same meaning over there but nobody cared. After all, there is GIMP.
I have never liked the term "automagically". There's no need for it, because it is exactly the same as "automatically". Unless the user is somehow implying that magic is involved.
As time goes on, that distinction will become decreasingly relevant.
I would have thought genes have a good deal of 'prior art'.
Just tried it. Very silly and not sure I would want to endure a long phone call in that position. The Nexus 7 weighs quite a bit more than a mobile phone.
From the article:
> The colors in this image are not what a human standing on Mars would see — the presence of dust in the atmosphere would make the scene appear much redder. Instead, the pictures have been white-balanced to show how it would appear under typical Earth lighting conditions.
So the story is that a photo of Mars that has been adjusted so it looks like Earth to make it easier for geologists to interpret... looks like Earth. Wow.
> quite a few people have been asking me if it's possible to use the Wi-Fi-based Nexus 7 as a phone
Do these people own a Nexus 7 or have they even seen one? It wouldn't make a great phone.
It's too big to hold up to your ear and besides there isn't a speaker near the top. So that means you'd have to use it as a speaker phone. And as it only has wi-fi it's not as if you can use it on the go, unless you happen to be near a wi-fi hotspot or similar that you have access to - but using it handsfree in public isn't going to work well.
I agree.
Despite all the talk of positive feedback, accuracy, key travel, etc. I find I get on best with an Apple keyboard, which has little feedback and almost no key travel (probably less so than a typical laptop keyboard).
It's quiet and effortless, and very comfortable to use. When I'm forced to use another keyboard (e.g. on-site at a customer's offices) I often find it way too noisy. In a quiet office it's almost embarrassing to type when there's a loud 'clack' sound with each key press.
Actually I misread, it's bit/s/hertz.
Spectral efficiency does seem to be measured in bits per herts. At least, Wikipedia says so, so it must be true:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_efficiency#Link_spectral_efficiency
I blame Hollywood. The moon is often shown in something more like a low earth orbit in sci-fi films (or at least the mass-market ones).
The famous 'earthrise' photo puts it in perspective.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthrise
I think it means that is was a miss that was near.
On the contrary, Earth radii is a useful unit when explaining how close something came to the earth. It helps to form a mental picture.
For example, if you state that the moon is 384,400km from the earth, that doesn't really mean much - even if you know the diameter of the earth it's not as easy to form a mental picture as it is if you say that it is 62 Earth radii.
Personally though I would have thought diameters would be better than radii? I.e. the moon is 31 Earth diameters (or simply 31 'Earths') away. (As a side note I think that is much further than most people would guess it is).
Of course they wouldn't need to fork the code - it's possible to make use of new features in the operating system if available but fall back to the older methods.
Requiring Windows Vista/7 specific features will lock the browser to Windows and will make porting to other operating systems, should they choose to, difficult. As I said, other browsers have no problem making use of specific operating system features for acceleration and still being cross-platform.
Windows XP has a 25% share so is a long way from obsolete.
I've used them (with VirtualBox). They are large and slow, and it would probably be easier to buy a cheap Windows 7 laptop instead.
I hate having to go through all of this for one browser, when supporting Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera is so easy in comparison.
And there was absolutely no way they could implement this in a way that would work on earlier versions of Windows, or on other operating systems?
Funny that Chrome, Safari, Opera etc. don't have the same issues. I believe Chrome also uses 3D acceleration when available?
It's an interesting idea, although the percentage seems quite high particularly if they already support IE7 - ongoing efforts to maintain compatibility are probably not that expensive. It can be a real pain at the HTML/CSS build stage though.
I wonder instead if this is an attempt to get a bit of press coverage, like RyanAir who every now and then state they are going to do something outrageous like charge for using the toilet on their aircraft. They never go through with it, but it generates a lot of press interest and further promotes their image as a low cost no frills company.
Internet Explorer 9 and 10 are actually pretty awesome browsers.
That might be so, but I don't like them because I need Windows Vista or Windows 7 to be able to test my web apps with them, unlike most of the other browsers which are cross-platform. They are locked in to Microsoft and force developers to run Windows if they want to ensure compatibility. I can't even use the ancient Windows XP laptop I keep around for the IE6, 7, and 8 testing, because for some reason they've decided the newer browsers won't run on XP (for marketing rather than technical reasons I expect).