dutchflyboy

It's possible that live the vuvuzelas are amazing, but on my TV it sounds like a group of angry bees are flying around, probably because the sound is reduced to two channels (left, right). But I must say, in the Netherlands vs Denmark match, the vuvuzelas weren't that awful.

Don't want to be pedant here, but your calculation does approximate quite a lot:

Degrees in one inch - arctan(1/24)2 = 4.77 "Data points" in eye for one inch, 12" away: 4.7750*2 = 477 (magic number cited in article)

Why the last multiplication by 2? The eye doesn't see pixels, it sees color difference, which means that the limit (not the minimum) is when two of those pixels cover the same "cycle" -> 1 color change in the cycle (in any case, that's how I understood the article).

Isn't it more likely that tourism is also a big business? Tourists only come back (or tell others to go) if they feel safe. Asking tourists for protection money or other such things is just shooting yourself in the foot if you (indirectly) get money from tourism.

Doesn't Zune Pass do that? If you live in the US it should work. For $14.99 you get music streamed, but also downloaded to your Zune, and you can keep 10 songs per month in non-DRM'd format. And SmartDJ should be able to do the automatic downloading (although I don't know how good it is).

(From Zune.net: "The songs are yours to play on up to three computers, and three Zune players and phones, for as long as your Zune Pass is valid." and "Additionally, a Zune Pass gives you 10 song credits to redeem each month. You can keep these songs forever - they become part of your permanent collection.")

No, the best way would be to show a notice in the corner notifying that the website probably won't be optimal using the old browser and ask the user to upgrade.

Don't be intrusive, it's not necessary, and will probably scare away people. Just explain why the website isn't working perfectly.

The idea is nice, but I think it's impossible. Just think of the amount of material you'd need to take in the plane for the shielding. And what about the water used to power the turbines? You'd also need a huge water tank. It's just way too heavy for the moment. We first need to find a more efficient (in the case of a plane, lighter) way to get energy out of a nuclear power source.

I think the we is used so the user takes part in the thinking process.

About that, has anyone noticed the test isn't very consistent? In the first exercise the speed of a raptor is 25 m/s, in the second exercise the wounded raptor runs at 10 m/s. So far, so good. But in the third exercise the raptors run at 10 m/s. Why, are they wounded? And of course, can the raptors chew through walls?

Well, don't forget this is while reading and converting a swf in javascript commands. It's a lot faster when you don't have the abstraction layer. So for most things, yeah, javascript+canvas is more than enough.

Maybe I completely missed the point, but, why WebKit? Why is WebKit better? I mean, I could use the exact same arguments for Gecko, and even for the IE rendering engine. I mean, if everyone uses the IE rendering engine, it'll always look the same, but that wouldn't resolve all problems.

Same here. For me the fonts are even completly unique (the "one in x browsers have this value" column is >840'000). Yet I'm using a fairly standard install (I can't remember installing any fonts). Maybe some programs install a font automatically, making you uniquely identifiable quite easily.

But I still wonder how fast the birthday paradox/problem would hit such an identification system. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem)

Looks great! The only thing that bugged me was the position indicator, as it didn't have a very predictable motion. Sometimes it goes very fast, other times it just stops. I understand that it's impossible to make the speed constant, but at the moment it really doesn't look natural.

Well, I might be wrong, but it's probably not the first time a gadget site gets a gadget before it's released. In many cases, that gadget should have been returned to the original owner, not to a journalist. But, again, as far as I know, no company has actually "sent the police in" (or even asked for any investigation) over such a matter. Apple did, it wasn't wrong of them (I mean, it's still a crime), but they were (one of) the first (only?) to do so.

So true, I actually had to search a little moment for the quoted text even though it isn't placed in a strange place. The brain apparently concludes that ads=noise.

While the trick is quite nice, I personally just press the "PI" button...

No, it would have been more valuable: the more people buy, the higher the price is.

Most importantly, if (I agree, it's a big if) we ever manage to get nuclear fusion running, we'll have all the helium we need: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/ug/hussainw/fusion.jpg

Well, when you put it in the search bar, your intention is to send the information to the search provider, after all, that's the whole point of the search box. However, with Chrome, as the two boxes are merged, the autocomplete function sends every keystroke to the search provider even when you wanted to go to a website directly, information that the search provider doesn't need at all and that is maybe private.

I agree, this article is really useless. I mean, just look up what the acrynom means: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Locator

It's the definition!

Well, in the worst case, you just re-apply the filter on the part you're not satisfied with (for example, those white areas at the bottom).

Hmm, I actually find the site quite nice. It's quite simple, readable and with some quite nice graphics.

But I agree, that background image is really horrible.

Do you mean the fact that it seems to load in two parts? That's quite normal behaviour, as the images that are used probably have quite a high resolution and the downscaling takes some time. Just try taking any picture with a nice big resolution and then applying an effect. It will load gradually and not at once.

If you meant something else, could you explain it a bit clearer?

I think I just lost my jaw!

True, but my point was that it's a bit stupid to say that software development wasn't engineering because it's not predictable. The problem isn't that it isn't predictable, but it's just so complex that errors are made, just like in any engineering project.

Hmm, good point, there is quite a difference. But still, I think most software problems wouldn't exist if there were more engineers (=theoretical knowledge) than artisans (=practical knowledge). But that's another discussion.

I disagree with this guy, every point he makes is flawed:

> Engineering components exist in the real world

Yes, and computers don't exist in some alternate dimension. People might forget it sometimes, but if you're a real engineer, you should know how a computer works, and know it's not magic, it's physics that make you're computer work. Software is merely an abstraction. Secondly, math is also engineering, but you can't touch it, can you?

> Engineering components interact in more predictable ways

No, wrong again. Software is perfectly predictable (BTW, if you want, you could build a mathematical model of every program. 100% predictable). If you make mistakes in other engineering branches you can get some strange results too.

> Engineering has fewer fundamental midcourse design changes

I don't see the link between engineering and design changes here. Are you trying to say that no single engineering project changes during it's life? Just look at prototypes of cars, those changes are quite massive. Secondly, ask yourself this question: How much does it cost to change a rocket design midway compared to a software program?

> Is software development a science?

Well, that's the point, in my opinion it's engineering.

> Writing software is more an art than an engineering discipline

Some think so, but really, it should be seen as engineering. Why? Artists make choices related to what they like, how they feel. Engineers make objective choices (or at least they should, nobody is perfect).

Rant finished!

Uhm, off-topic much? I mean, Silverlight isn't linked to IE9 in any way. Silverlight is a plugin, like flash. It will work in Firefox too, but isn't installed by default. I don't see the link between IE9 (which gives web developpers the possibility to make interactive websites WITHOUT plugins) and Silverlight (a plugin).

No, you don't need to. Try putting this in a hex editor. You'll see a http handshake. The first part you need to send is "GET " which is the same as sending the following bytes: "47 45 54 20". It's just made a bit "simpler" so people don't get the encoding wrong (non-ascii characters, etc...).

Well, that's probably why there's Pi next to to the time.

Did you actually use the link? In the description there is: "High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles!" (emphasis not mine). That'll probably count as an attribution.