inthewind

Sorry I'm not that offay with Android. I think it was a system notification, a 'Google' one. I doubt it was a Facebook one. And my partner doesn't use Google+ actively as far as I know. They may have stalked me, I'm not privy to their surfing habits.

They don't really use their Google account for anything but Google play, but it could be tied into their Chrome browser/profile somehow.

A long shot could be that we both visited the same *.wordpress.com site today.

Yes you can't ignore MS, especially when they still dominate the desktop and workstation market with their OS.

I was a sysadmin in the 90s, and other admins I knew loved the Microsoft offerings - having gui control panels to server services. Active directory and the like. It wasn't particularly innovative, but MS managed to put lipstick on a pig and managed to sell it, while cleverly locking down their ecosystem through their proprietry platform. For some the CLI and Linux is still a turnoff, and there isn't that much preventing people from putting lipstick on that particular pig - but you don't see that many offerings (arguably you could say that Apple server is kind of like that).

A hypothetical moment of realisation.

I don't think that is what set it apart. It was probably having a software program (iTunes), that could work with your hardware and manage your library. Not sure when they introduced the shop.

You could try:

print count(nsaQuery.region('global').device('laptop').activity('-24hr'))

;)

For all the other benefits of the phone, I'd live with that. At least you 'can in theory' dock the phone and then use a 'standard' keyboard.

Placing a physical keyboard on the device would probably make it weaker and thicker/bigger.

Those that like typing on physical keyboard give MessagEase a thumbs up for touch input.

The take home I got was to question Facebook and Google's motives.

Loon and Android (or a free alternative) could make for a pretty sweet peer to peer alternative Internet.

Perhaps an alternative would be to bounce signals off of other satellites.

http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4404759/Pro...

Not wanting to be tangential but is exFAT any good? And what do others use for a cross platform file system? I sadly had to format a portable 600GB drive as FAT32 the other day, just so it would play ball across OSs and devices. I went to use extFAT, then realised I'd have to use FUSE to get it to work so fell back to FAT32.

Also is it backwards compatible with the other FATS; as in can't you read an ext4 as ext3 (hoping that I haven't made that up)?

This thread is showing the US bias of the forum again. Some of aren't earning enough to run a car let alone a modest one.

I'm sure the whole gaming of HN has been talked to death. But it's not ever that clear to me as to what an 'upvote' actually is. In my mind a submission upvote means 'Interesting', and with comments it's less clear. Does it mean 'I agree', 'Interesting angle' , or what

It looks interesting, but, what is it?

Oh please. This just breeds exclusivity. What's to stop another site or individual filtering HN?

Yeah people frequently mix up left and right also. And my brother always wrote his numbers backwards or rather left to right (units on the left).

Also a lot of people have trouble with the back and forward slashes. When teaching html, people got the closing slash mixed up, it was all over the place.

You certainly aren't alone. I thought the Internet would usher in a new era of enlightenment and put an end to many of man's problems. I'm less optimistic these days, and to be frank what I do is build some pretty dull websites. That's not that inspiring. You can still find ways to take pride in putting lipstick on a pig though.

For me I'm frustrated because I find it harder now to work, and yet I'm more skilled. When I was a crappy programmer (and by no means I am that good now) in some ways I was better. Perhaps because it's easier to see your target when you know less. Ignorance is bliss and all that. The more you know, the more choices perhaps are there to be made - and that can lead to paralysis.

I ended up with RSI that pretty much spelt an end to using a computer for at least 12 months. I've tried to battle on through it. But at that moment I had a similar worry: what am I going to do?

I can't hate computers, as much as I can't hate TV or man. I loathe the time I loose when sitting beside a computer, I've lost many days. And just end up loathing myself. I'm also a perfectionist which doesn't help. Especially with programming, as there is no perfect way of writing a program. And there isn't that much of a tangible outcome with programming (but I guess that also depends on what you are writing) For example if I were to contribute towards say some software on the mars rover, or a life support machine - I might get an immense reward in what I'm doing compared to writing yet another load of CRUD.

I love it when I see simplicity, or apparant simplicity. Something like when your computer just works, compared to wasting hours troubleshooting when all you want to do is print out something. That's the frustration I have with programming - it seems like you do so much for so little.

One day in the garden and I make noticible change. One day on the computer, and the house is still a mess, shelves need putting up and the washing up still needs to be done. It's no wonder why we get frustrated.

Having said that, I don't know what your work is. But for me, most websites could be replaced with a one sized fits all solution. Think of all that time saved.

If all the precious hours programmers labored instead were spent putting the world to rights - we'd have a far better world! Lots of talent in my mind is being wasted. But perhaps people are just happy being occupied.

You missed the word 'job'. Perhaps the fun expires when it becomes a job?

Further, I can see why you'd prefer say a conversation to happen on HN then say on Youtube! Being able to comment too easily can make for dull and worthless ill thoughtout comments. But breaking down that barrier is also a social lubricant.

I personally don't have my own blog, I just throw comments into the wind on the web. If I were to host my own blog, I probably wouldn't add a comment system for fear that I'd want to censor or moderate them! But I'd welcome feedback.

My preference may be to have people email me their thoughts and for me to then add feedback to articles at a later time. This might be a little burdensome and not practical whatsoever.

To many the discussion is in part the article. And it feels too difficult to be at every table at the same time.

You could be absent from the conversation and leave your right to reply for a post mortem on your posts. You could do that by hunting down comments and discussions after the fact.

Who'll go back and how will they know to read your post mortem anyway?

It reminds me why I'm not a blogger or a journalist!

Probably only when their lives, loved ones and assets are at risk. But those with more are probably less likely to be in the thick of it, when the peasants revolt - and start to kill each other.

It's a presumption though to assume that the conversation will be happening over there. Or it seems to me a little lofty to suggest that a discussion should take place amongst those people. I get where you are coming from, from a springboard perspective - allowing people a forum for chat, but the thing is these chats could be happening all over the place.

In the good old days, there was usenet... and it felt nice that there was only one place to discuss say a particular subject - and meet with those interested, and specialists within that realm. I couldn't stand the scurge of online forums as it scattered the conversations all over the place. And you also end up with the same conversations and realisations happening in different places. This could be negated if you did a little online homework, and posted a link to someone elses comment that perhaps was inline with yours. Kind of like a +1. But hunting down other comments and trawling through forums isn't efficient or particularly easy so I guess this isn't really that practical.

Anyway the point is that these conversations are happening elsewhere all over the place. So how do you seed/promote the piece and the ensuing conversation in the first place? And how do others know where the conversation is taking place. You could possibly provide a search for backlinks to your article.

It's kind of a shame that everyone doesn't have their own blog, and within their blog they just make a comment referring to what they've read elsewhere, and that link becomes available to read somehow from your article. This could be handled by the browser alone, it could do this by default - in a 'Elsewhere' panel for instance, by doing something like searching for backlinks etc. Pingbacks go some way, but they could be quite distracting.

I'm not sure how eternal HN comments are. Not hosting comments yourself puts you at the mercy of others.

Plus I'm not sure how polite any of this is. Hey myself and others are coming over to your place to discuss matters.

Yes, badges can so oversimplify and mislead.

From Wikipedia:

Democrat: is a proponent of democracy

Republican: An advocate of a republic, a form of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship

Libertarianism: a set of related political philosophies that uphold liberty as the highest political end.

All of them sound pretty great to me, to the point I could easily choose to be a republican libertarian democrat. Heck you could even probably be a republican libertarian democratic anarchist.

I wonder if they really do feel threatened?

What culture?

Interesting take. The missus often reminds me that the body does well to have a little time out from alcohol. At least a couple of days off between drinks. Which could allow for weekend and mid week drinking or some variant. It's easier said than done though.

For me I'm really crap at switching off from work, and I can easily torture myself at the thought that I should be working. However when I drink, I pretty much say to myself - that's enough. And likewise if I'm on my bike.

So when I'm not drinking or not exercising, I'm not relaxing, and that's just a recipe for disaster for me - the knock on effect is that my programming really suffers. I find it a very difficult cycle to break away from, despite there being a simple solution.

At least you might be giving your brain time to breathe when you are exercising.

Kde was inspired by Windows 95 (which was ripped off from...). Vista later borrowed alot back from Kde.

I'd personally like more local storage depos. And keep freight off of the road during the day. Night time would also be a good time to shift freight. The last mile could be done with a small electric vehicle, or over pneumatic tubes.

What makes buses and trains so attractive is that they take up far less space (if filled) compared with say a car carrying one passenger.

It might be too late in the UK to get cargo and freight back on the canals. Also our local post offices are being closed down, which would be the natural choice for a local pickup point. I for one wouldn't mind a text to say I have a parcel to go and collect. I'd probably be happy collecting my mail once a week (bar the spam.)

Side tracking further, I heard some old dears the other day, lamenting that they could no longer afford to send xmas cards. It now costs about a dollar to send mail by first class.

I'm forever failing to grok some websites, even though I've been working with and looking at them for years.

Yeah I really could have done with the tab order being a bit better. And flipping the card when tabbing would definitely help.

Those of us familiar with data entry get really used to tabbing.

It doesn't tell you if you go wrong either.

I surprisingly liked the idea and execution though (putting the other issues aside.)

What a bucket head!

> I, for instance, would prefer that the industry adopt six or eight standard screen sizes and stick the fuck with them. Google is in a position where it can mandate that, actually.

I'd rather think of devices having different size displays, different shape displays, multiple displays or even no display.

Theses things can change rather rapidly! I quite like the idea of skinning incrementally, start with a CLI (or even something more minimal - like the button and beep input/output interface) and go up from there.

What I'd like to see is a very basic cheap open mobile device.

It might even have to shun making calls because of the proprietary hardware/software stack. Is it possible to make an open/free mobile phone right now?

Alternatively you could use wifi, wireless and peer to peer. A very cheap instant grid/alt internet would be nice.

Interesting the way that Google have opted for their HDMI dongles. I'm surprised we haven't seen a similar offering from the Ubuntu camp. Do we really need the display?