HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

archgrove

2,454 karma · joined March 31, 2009

Adam Wright (http://www.archgrove.co.uk)
submissionscomments
archgrove··on Yotaphone
Doesn't work at all with 2-finger scrolling on Safari for Mac.
archgrove··on Our Most Important Technology Project Yet
Lots of froth, lots of buzz, lots of hype. Few facts, few examples. It's actually hard to comment on, as there's so little to get hold of. Standard Wolfram fare, rally (still waiting for CAs to take over the world), but always disappointing from someone evidently so smart.

Oh, and if Mathematica is the basis of the "Wolfram language", and this is the universal computing language of our new "interconnected brain", I'm leaving for another universe. Unless the boy who cried wolf really has cornered one this time.

archgrove··on Apple maps: how Google lost when everyone thought it had won
I wasn't referring to a 10% error rate, just a 90% "You can use Apple maps to solve this problem" rate. I've not had any significant error rate with my use cases for a while now.

The 10% use cases I was referring to are the "I want to find generic type of business in this area" case, and the "I need a street view of this" case, both of which are (for me) comparatively rare versus searching for a post-code or known address.

archgrove··on Apple maps: how Google lost when everyone thought it had won
Apple maps has reached "good enough" for a large number of use cases. It's now "good enough" to use as a satellite navigation system for a car, "good enough" to give me walking directions to nearby major sites/roads, and "good enough" as a "I'm sure I'm nearly at X, where the heck is it?" recovery tool.

It still has a pretty useless database of locations. The listings for many shops/venues in my area are literally years (sometimes decades) out of date, even after I reported them back when iOS 6 was a beta. This is slowly improving, seemingly starting with locations that are commonly visited, but it's still not there. However, given that most of my use cases are "Enter post (ZIP) code, go there", this doesn't really matter. 90% of the time, Apple maps works fine, and there's no reason to use something else, especially when it's ad-laden.

Given that maps are not a core concern for Apple, I've always been surprised they've not just thrown money at improving open street maps. A few hundred million to setup an "OSM foundation" (or fund an existing one) could seriously help them (decent free mapping database to use), and hurt Google (major commercial advantage limited/eliminated). They could probably get MS onboard as well.

archgrove··on Installing and setting up OS X Mavericks for Python development
It never asks for locally created applications. It's purely for things downloaded over the Internet. In essence, it's a more advanced version of the original "You just downloaded this, are you sure you want to run it" warnings from the file quarantine system introduced with....Leopard, I think?
archgrove··on Rather than savage cuts, Switzerland considers “Star Trek” economics
But unless the welfare bill has an astronomical amount of waste (which I don't deny may be the case), surely this redistributes welfare from those who need it to those who don't? At the moment, for example, I receive no welfare payments. Thus my "share" of welfare is actually going to people who require it. In the basic income universe, suddenly I get a share of this money, which must come from those who currently get it, thus reducing their share. Moreover, this is ignoring all the inflationary pressures that a basic income would induce.
archgrove··on Rather than savage cuts, Switzerland considers “Star Trek” economics
I still have no understanding on how this sort of thing would be paid for. Presumably, it's via some form of income, consumption, and corporation taxes. However, the marginal income tax rate would have to be huge (as you need to recover the entire amount paid to the earner in "basic income" before you get a cent to spend on someone else), the consumption taxes would negate the value of the basic income, and punitive corporation taxes would just ensure no-one actually sets up a company there.

Until we have Star Trek style technology for these free ham sandwiches, I don't see how Star Trek style economics will actually work.

archgrove··on Hoon's Moronic Type System
I'm presuming this is "in joke" that I'm very much out of. I honestly have no idea what this is about at all, nor can I find any context.
archgrove··on AppleTV 6.0 requires Fairplay-DRM Airplay Sources
Since 10.8, OS X has had native Airplay support. Even if your Mac doesn't have the hardware to do Airplay video, you can select Airplay as a sound output device. Applications can output to Airplay via the CoreAudio API, documented athttp://joris.kluivers.nl/blog/2012/07/25/per-application-air....

Of course, Windows users are pretty screwed.

archgrove··on Programming languages list, by Ian Hickson
I think if "Controlled by Microsoft" is going to be a "notable failing" for C#, "Controlled by Google" has to be a negative for Go, and "Controlled by Oracle" has to be one for Java.
archgrove··on Android vs. iOS: Comparing the Development Process of the GQueues Mobile Apps
Why not just use the XCode organiser (via AppleScript if you want automation) to delete applications or download/upload app sandboxes? There's no need to touch the phone or use "iFunBox" for this.
archgrove··on Movie Subtitle Fansite Raided By Copyright Industry And Police
I no longer buy the "under-served" customer concept, unless by "under-served", you mean they're waiting for "I want it delivered exactly when I want, in the format I want, to do with as I want, for free" to be "served" to them. I'm sure there is a some truth to it, but the fact that the "Pay what you want" Humble Indie bundles are pirated, along with thousands of $0.99 mobile apps, indicates that many people won't pay even a pittance for content they clearly want, no matter how convenient the delivery or noble the causes.
archgrove··on Xbox, A New Generation Revealed (livesteam)
Just as I got a tonne of information from yours. My point is that this is, primarily a games console. They're up against Sony, who are focusing entirely on games, and Nintendo, who are focusing entirely on games. They've shown, essentially, 3 games, and a giant pile of fluff. I can already watch TV on my TV. I have never desired to go "Quick, watch TV! Damn, back to the game! No, wait, TV! Hold on, TV guide!". That's a gimmick, not a feature worthy of nearly a minute of stage time. It looks, in honesty, like a rushed announcement for something that's years off ready, not launching in 6 months.

My "highbrow" comment then, is that this is a big mistake. They had the advantage of being the last next-gen console reveal - they can answer every point of Sony and Nintendo, plus add their own spin. And they basically gave us less information than was already public in the gaming press, probably pissed off a large proportion of the hardcore gaming public, are unlikely to have attracted the non-gaming groups, and picked a rather daft name. It was an open goal, and this went so far wide, I think they'd have been better not saying anything until they had something to say.

archgrove··on Xbox, A New Generation Revealed (livesteam)
And these are precisely the people who won't be watching the reveal of a new console.
archgrove··on Xbox, A New Generation Revealed (livesteam)
Most annoying to me, is we're 30 minutes into the reveal, and they've still not discussed games. Literally, we've had about 7 seconds of a game playing in the background. As far as I people can tell, this would (so far) seem to be a voice controlled cable box.

Oh, and it looks like a shiny VCR. Bleh.

Edit: Ah, at 31 minutes, we have a games developer. Pity it's EA, but c'est la vie.

archgrove··on ITunes 11.0.3 is out. New MiniPlayer + Improved Search Speed + ...
The link was to the wrong version, initially. The "completely redesigned" referred to the entirety of iTunes 11, not the minor update.
archgrove··on Diablo III Economy Broken by an Integer Overflow Bug
I remember a similar bug in the original Asherons Call (amazingly, still running with regular content updates!). Three or four years in, they added a new, very expensive object to the game (a "Pyreal Scarab" for anyone who cares). It cost a lot, so the idea was that people wouldn't be (at that point in the economy) buying many.

Now, in Asheron's Call, the world is huge. There are hundreds, if not thousands of vendors. And three of these vendors were set to sell their goods in stacks of up to 1000. Unfortunately, Cost of Pyreal Scrab * 1000 > 2^31, which wrapped. I can't remember if you either just got the goods for free (which you then sold back for huge profit), or if you actually got paid to take these things. Either way, overnight, the economy was destroyed. The entire game state had to be reset from backups; a dreaded rollback. Worse, the developer took a few days to do this.

Trust me, out of all the customers whose data you don't want to muss with, it's hardcore MMORPG players. Even though I was just a player, I can still remember the outrage all these years later. It taught me to always use appropriate types for objects with "value", and I've never accidentally used signed or floating point storage for currency again.

archgrove··on Geometee
Yes, please. I like the concept, but found using the dials really fiddly and unintuitive. They don't seem to "turn" like one would expect, working only off the height of the mouse cursor after starting interaction.
archgrove··on Pirate Bay Finds Safe Haven in Iceland, Switches to .IS Domain
The government doesn't own it, but it enforces the right that you own it. Both for physical goods in the obvious way, and IP via the way of copyright.
archgrove··on Pirate Bay Finds Safe Haven in Iceland, Switches to .IS Domain
Copyright has been around a lot longer than the late 1800's/early 1900's. And many, many people rely on it for their income, not just the recording industry. In fact, the entire software industry, pretty much. Does the recording industry lose protection because they're big?
archgrove··on Pirate Bay Finds Safe Haven in Iceland, Switches to .IS Domain
Can you suggest a business not dependent on government grants? As far as I can tell, every business in the world is. Any form of property rights is a government granted monopoly. The only natural law is "If I'm bigger than you, I'll take what I want". No matter what business you're in, you're relying on government protection to stop me just smacking you on the head and taking your stuff, whether it's tangible physical goods or IP. They only difference here is that the internet has rendered the head smacking part obsolete for IP, so people can skip straight to taking the stuff.
archgrove··on Pirate Bay Finds Safe Haven in Iceland, Switches to .IS Domain
I'm not really sure it's bullying per se, to try and stop the mass illegal downloading of your content. It's not like they've got thugs at the door, they're just trying to shut down a site who's sole purpose is enabling the illegal downloading, and who has no interest in co-operating with even nicely worded, fair requests. I'm not a great fan of the entertainment industry, but if people were doing this to YC startups who focus on IP production, would the level of "support" be the same?

I mean, what alternative do people suggest for these companies? That they ignore it, thus tacitly approve it, until everyone uses and doesn't bother with legal avenues? I hear a lot about "Well, find a new business model!", without explaining why a company should be forced to change based on clearly illegal activity. Even accepting the pragmatic argument that "It's going to happen anyway", I'm curious as to what business model people are suggesting?

archgrove··on Linode NextGen: RAM Upgrade
The migration time seems to be largely dependent on how much disk space you're actually using. In London, I'm getting a 43.75 MB/s rate on my primary disk. It's using some kind of compression though, as an empty disk copied across instantly; it's been about 10 minutes for a 10gig drive.

Edit: Ah, just misread the console. It's still "copying" my empty drives, at the advertised rate. So dividing your disks by the 40ish MBps is a good estimate of migration time.

archgrove··on Piracy Doesn’t Hurt Game of Thrones, Director Says
Yes, sure. Because you wouldn't buy the books and DVDs from the rights holders, you'd buy them from some Chinese guy on eBay who was selling them for virtually the cost price of redistribution (and doing so perfectly legally, in the "information is free" world).
archgrove··on Mega has launched
I use it because it supports proper continuous zooming with pinch-to-zoom on a trackpad (exactly like Safari on iOS devices). Chrome does a weird step-by-step increment that seems to involve re-laying out the page at each step. The multi-touch interaction with Safari is just better in general, IMO.
archgrove··on How to Write an Opening Sentence
For my money, you can't beat Dickens. My favourite two:

"Marley was dead: to begin with"

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way"

archgrove··on Apple blocks Java 7 Mac plugin in OS X
Just turn off the auto update for the blacklist (IIRC, it's in the Security prefpane). "Problem" solved?
archgrove··on Apple blocks Java 7 Mac plugin in OS X
Quite possibly! Have re-read, but only see a misinformed comment. What was the point?
archgrove··on Apple blocks Java 7 Mac plugin in OS X
You can run anything you want in OS X. This block for Java is part of a (easily deactivated) security system to prevent malware or critically vulnerable software from compromising your system.
archgrove··on Behind the scenes of the Pirate Bay trial
Because it's inflammatory, and patently nonsense. By any non-mad definition, Sweden is not a banana republic. Saying so prejudices the points made (though frankly, the entire "article" is 1 sided hyperbole).
← PreviousPage 3 of 7Next →