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  1. Re:What About Machine Language and Assembly? on Oracle and Google Spar Over Whether Programming Languages Can Be Copyrighted · · Score: 1

    This whole comparison is also further complicated by the fact that the Z80 mnemonics did not resemble those of the 8080. It was binary-compatible, though.

    So *now* what are we copyrighting? :-)

  2. Re:Google Maps -- flawed, but still pretty good on Apple Switches (Mostly) To OpenStreetMap · · Score: 1

    I've found a lot of mistakes with Google Maps, but I still find it invaluable for plotting real-time routes by incorporating traffic information.

    Agreed. I use it frequently. Not to mention the public transit tie-in. Yesterday I dropped my motorcycle off at the shop, and punched up Google maps, and it routed me right home on the bus.

    Does OpenStreetMap link to real-time traffic info?

    That's beyond the scope of the project. A third-party project could definitely do that mash-up, though.

    Some OSM contributors might dispute this characterization, but OSM is about the map data far more than it is about the presentation of that data. Anyone can build whatever renderer they choose to present the OSM data, and that renderer can be selective about what to present in order to make a map that is appropriate for some particular use, e.g. ski runs or rollerblade-friendly streets. The OSM main page happens to default to the mapnik renderer, but you can switch between several by hitting the "+" icon in the upper right.

  3. Re:Maps? on Apple Switches (Mostly) To OpenStreetMap · · Score: 1

    I don't doubt it--in many places, OSM data is superior. Out of curiosity, is this true in all of Europe?

  4. Re:Maps? on Apple Switches (Mostly) To OpenStreetMap · · Score: 1

    A self-correction: Google does note that the hiking trail is a "restricted usage road", so that's something. However, I happen to know that this trail is the same type of road as the nearby Seaview Trail, which is not marked as driveable on the Google Map. So I still maintain it is an error. :-)

  5. Re:Maps? on Apple Switches (Mostly) To OpenStreetMap · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I won't speak of the "audible" part, since that's just a small matter of programming.

    Turn by turn is... complicated. Of course, you can upload OSM maps on your Garmin right now and get turn by turn instructions. However, accuracy is a factor.

    The amount of information needed to drive through a city is absolutely astounding, as is the frequency with which it changes. For example, a street near my house is closed mornings and evenings to vehicle traffic, except weekends and holidays and June through August. That data has to be in there to accurately route. "No left turn, 4-6 PM Monday through Friday." "No northbound traffic except bicycles." "Carpools only 7 AM to 10 AM"--God help us.

    Not to mention just plain errors in the data. Near my house, an overpass was accidentally connected to the freeway. My Garmin with OSM data wanted to route me off the freeway directly onto the overpass. (I fixed the error.)

    Realignments don't happen that often in cities any more in the US, but they happen on country roads and interstates *all the time*. I didn't realize until I started contributing to OSM exactly how much construction was always happening.

    Highway 36 west of Red Bluff, CA, was recently realigned. Google even has it wrong for now: http://g.co/maps/mhdkm . And check this out: Google wants me to drive on a hiking trail: http://g.co/maps/jpxr8 I'm not saying they suck--Google's map quality is *exceptional*, and yet it errs. But I'd say that for turn-by-turn, it has OSM currently beat.

    I guess what I'm saying is... uh, contribute to OSM. :-)

  6. Re:The Desktop Mirror on Why Developers Still Prefer iOS To Android · · Score: 1

    For reasons I don't understand, average people are willing to frequently switch the OS or UI on their phone, whereas they tend to stick with the same computer they're used to using.

  7. Re:So Windows 95 was the first OS with a gui? on Jobs Wanted To Destroy Android · · Score: 1

    Oh, you guessed! Does this mean I don't win the stuffed wombat?

    There is always prior art for everything. Apple, Microsoft, and Google have all been liberally inspired by each other, and by a great many other companies. It can always be said that a different company did it first, and if not, that a different company was the first to do it right. And after a few evolutions, the noise restarts again. Where's the hacker love? Can't we just appreciate these awesome machines for what they are?

  8. Re:and what about xerox's stuff? on Jobs Wanted To Destroy Android · · Score: 1

    The point is that Apple stole from Windows 95!

    This whole "stealing" thing is pointless.

  9. Re:Subscribers on Google Reader's Social Features Merging With Google+ · · Score: 1

    Dumping tech links in Public just spams the 90% of my followers who don't want to see them, so that's not really going to work, I don't think.

  10. Subscribers on Google Reader's Social Features Merging With Google+ · · Score: 1

    I post things to my Reader feed. I don't have *that* many subscribers, but I'd like to replicate the experience in G+. Namely:

    1. Third parties should be able to subscribe/unsubscribe to my feed
    2. My feed should not be shown to non-subscribers in my G+ circles
    3. I should be able to add stories to my feed with a bookmarklet
    4. People should be able to subscribe to my feed with an RSS reader

    AFAIK, all of this is currently impossible in G+. So... it's a downgrade for the moment.

  11. Re:Good Question on Why Does the US Cling To Imperial Measurements? · · Score: 1

    Same with miles. For comparison, here are all the numbers by which 1000 is evenly divisible:

    2 4 5 8 10 20 25 40 50 100 125 200 250 500

    and here are all the numbers by which 5280 is evenly divisible:

    2 3 4 5 6 8 10 11 12 15 16 20 22 24 30 32 33 40 44 48 55 60 66 80 88 96 110 120 132 160 165 176 220 240 264 330 352 440 480 528 660 880 1056 1320 1760 2640

    Feature!

    In practice, though, I prefer metric--only so many divisions are practically useful to me. I GPS a lot and I found that after I set the unit to metric, I became used to it in a relatively short amount of time. Eventually I just got to know both, sometimes mixing systems in the same sentence.

  12. Re:it's a trap on Michigan Police Could Search Cell Phones During Traffic Stops · · Score: 1

    Play your cards right, and you can get them to pay for a new phone, too. ;-)

  13. Re:Unnecessary complexity on Python 3.2 Released · · Score: 1

    I see no change that makes it simpler to use, no change that requires less code than the former version.

    "I mean, if you've seen one change, you've seen 'em all."

    "And have you seen them all?"

    "Well, I've seen one. Well, a little one... a picture of a... I've heard about them."

    Unicode and binary data handling. That's enough for me, right there. The new command line parsing stuff is more concise than getopt. And it parses JSON, too.

    Not everyone is going to like every change, but declaring you've seen no change for the better out of the huge number of changes just means you haven't looked enough.

  14. Re:How I back up photos/videos on How Do You Store Your Personal Photos? · · Score: 1

    Main store is on a MAC

    Can't store a lot of data in 6 bytes...

    It's compressed... a lot.

    "What! Man, you asked for a data compressor, so that's what we gave you... you never said anything about writing a decompressor, too!"

  15. Re:Easy solution on Wikipedia Could Block 67 Million Verizon Customers · · Score: 1

    "I tried that! Don't you think I would have tried that?"

  16. Re:I think this should be read more like... on Flash Can Rob 2 Hours From MacBook Air's Battery Life · · Score: 1

    WebGL is currently doing stuff Flash can't dream of, and that will only improve (unlike Flash).

    With Molehill, it looks like they're dreaming pretty closely. Care to bet which tech hits 90% market share first?

  17. Re:No ABP in OSX? on Flash Can Rob 2 Hours From MacBook Air's Battery Life · · Score: 1

    Switching to HTML5 canvas animations actually *increases* battery life up to 37%!

  18. Re:No ABP in OSX? on Flash Can Rob 2 Hours From MacBook Air's Battery Life · · Score: 1

    Since Apple only recently allowed access the access to the hardware video decoder that Adobe needed, it's probably fair to cut Adobe some slack in that department. As I recall, it took about 5 business days for Adobe to put out a dev build that supported hardware video decoding.

  19. Re:Degrees on What If We Ran Universities Like Wikipedia? · · Score: 1

    Well, there are a few. If I won the lottery and never had to work again, I'd definitely teach people computer stuff for free, both in person and in writing. I love it.

  20. Re: US Department of Homeland Security on US Says Plane Finder App Threatens Security · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Here's another idea: how about preventing the crimes that are already happening in this country!

    Wait--was the original story about, again?

  21. I like it on Did Google Go Instant Just To Show More Ads? · · Score: 1

    Another vote here for the minority. I like being able to quickly narrow my search on the spot--to this end I found I began ordering my search terms before I typed them in, e.g.:

    susanville food breakfast best bacon

    I use Chrome's URL field to do Google searches all the time, and find I miss instant when I'm typing up there.

  22. Re:Cavers on A Portable Laser Backpack For 3D Mapping · · Score: 2, Informative

    Speaking as someone who actually does cave survey, I dream of devices like this, I tell you.

    You guys might be amused to learn that one of the most powerful pieces of cave survey tech we currently use is a custom-built device called the Shetland Attack Pony, but it has nothing on this backpack thing.

  23. Re:security is built in the application, not platf on Security a Concern As HTML5 Advances · · Score: 1

    Demand for these things plays a role, sure, but nevertheless the HTML5 platform still makes an effort to enforce security policy below the JavaScript/HTML layer. See CORS, for instance, or the Same-Origin Policy.

  24. Re:security is built in the application, not platf on Security a Concern As HTML5 Advances · · Score: 1

    Believe me, there's a lot of security stuff in the HTML5 specs. Want to get an image from behind a firewall and AJAX the data out? The spec disallows it. (Nothing in the JS code makes it impossible--you can absolutely code it up. The only thing that stops you is the spec says a security exception must occur when the JS program attempts to access the pixel data.) That's just one example of many.

    So, actually, the platform can stop security-unaware developers. Security is in both the platform and the app which runs upon it. In a later post, you say "if the platform implements something insecurely, then relying on that implementation is not building a secure application." This is true. But there's nothing stopping us from building a more secure platform, as well.

    Like with SMTP, being built with implicit trust causes all kinds of problems with HTML/JS. Strides are being made, and specs are being produces by W3C to address the issues.

  25. Re:Silly on Flash On Android Is 'Shockingly Bad' · · Score: 1

    I stand corrected on your position, and agree that HTML5 is hardly limited to videos. I've used it myself to do some crazy image editing with and layout with modern CSS. I really am a big fan.

    But I do think Flash has some functionality that simply doesn't exist in HTML5 (afaik), e.g. pixel shaders and dynamic audio generation. I've done plenty of Flash programming over the years, as well.