listic

How was Peeple supposed to be used?

How is this related to Dropzone? http://www.dropzonejs.com/

My go-to resource for comparison of phones' battery life is GSMArena's Battery life test results. [1] I customize usage pattern to 1h calls, 3h web browsing and 3h video playback (I don't watch much video on the phone, but I believe that power consumption of Skype, GPS navigation, etc. should be somewhat similar)

I feel that today's phones are way too large, so I limit my choice to non-huge ones. So far, last year's Sony Z3 Compact tops the chart: 44% better battery life than iPhone6s in my 'heavy usage' scenario, 63% better in the default scenario. I'm eagerly awaiting the results for the recent Z5 Compact: it might provide even better battery life (72.5 hours compared to 'two and a half days', as tested by The Guardian [2] [3]).

[1] GSMArena: Battery life test results http://www.gsmarena.com/battery-test.php3

[2] The Guardian: Sony Xperia Z3 compact review http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/03/sony-xperi...

[3] The Guardian: Sony Xperia Z5 Compact review http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/23/sony-xperi...

> one blob away

I'll believe it when I'll see it. All we have is their word for it, and I really don't like the way they are promoting their product so far.

> new permanent mode

Do you actually turn it on manually every time?

What does the low power mode actually do?

You know, it's because of people like you (and a vast mass of people who don't care enough) that we can't have long-working phones. In short, a phone with greater battery life is a boon when you:

* travel a lot. It doesn't have to be often - but when you leave your room early in the morning for a long day in a new town, and use it a lot, it really gives you peace of mind to know that you will be able to make that last important call in the evening.

* forget to plug it in. Seriously: do I really really have to plug this gadget in evry single evening? what if I forget or don't have the means to, every once in a while? It's a flagship device we're talking about; isn't it supposed to make my life easier?

* want your phone to have extra margin of reliability just in case - either to prolong its life when the battery deteriorates over time, or use it in cold weather - I am not sure if it's permanent damage, but battery holds less charge in the cold.

The iPhone is not the worst offender - it's probably slightly above average as far as smartphone battery life goes, but, to me, saying that battery life is not an issue sounds like a blasphemy: we (the consumers) have just squeezed barely adequate battery life from the manufacturers and voicing the opinion that it's enough feels like inviting back the compromises that they (the manufacturers) are far too happy to use.

The battery pack sure solves some woes, but it's not by coincidence we call it a mobile phone: it is supposed to be self-sufficient. Do you like to carry around a second box on your body at all times, just to be able to use a smartphone reliably? I don't. Battery pack should be a bonus that's nice to have, not a requirement to last through the day.

I hope this code finds way into mainstream system information apps on App Store.

Could you please elaborate on how you did that?

Looks like SQLite is historically targetting a range of platforms that includes ones without a fully functional, standard-compliant printf(). Yes, that means it doesn't rely on much of anything elese provided by the C runtime and the operating system.

That reminds me: as an emebedded systems programmer, I've encountered a proper standards-compliant C compiler that allowed switching between a full, light and no version of printf() with a switch - you were allowed to omit just that one bit of the standard library for some significant savings in RAM and ROM usage. Of course, it was a little wonder for me at the time that a standards-compliant C compiler existed on that platform at all, but to realize that printf() function could often be the most heavy part of the application was another thing altogether... mind-expanding, really. The lesser C compiler vendors would just cut corners on the standard library implementation where they see fit, but that one left standard compliance as an option.

I would hope for that, but I'm afraid that the rumored 4" device was just the 2015 iPod Touch.

Thanks! Any info on the next wave of country releases?

> This year Apple did multi-country launches ... so no more driving down to the US and queuing for hours to be sure of getting one or two.

What is Apple's iPhone 6s release schedule?

Apparently, they have already released it in the countries other than the US, but I still can't see any information online regarding where it was released and where it's going to, next.

Thanks! Could you possibly please update the FAQ with all the recent users?

I am afraid PRTs would have hard time competing with roads, and even more so with railways, in terms of passenger carrying capacity.

Wikipedia says [1] high capacity road can carry 2,400 passengers per hour; light rail 20,000 - 25,000 passengers per hour per lane in each direction.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail#Comparison_with_hig...

It's not just the cost, really: I know I can have a second hand smartphone for peanuts. There'll probably always be some people who don't use smartphones, for whatevre reason.

London Heathrow Airport has Travel Pods like that: https://youtu.be/F5Knmgr2Ge8

Wikipedia article lists five operational systems like this in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit#List_of...

Ah, yes, it's on Wikipedia and source is here http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/elio-motors-unveils-...

Well, it's quite a reasonable engine for a target weight of 570 kg (1,250 lb), but with that weight I doubt it will go by as a motorcycle in any jusrsdiction, or will it, in the US?

Also, stated fuel efficiency happens to be 84 mpg-US highway, but only 60 mpg-US EPA blended, which is good, but not that surprising.

What is surprising though, is how did they managed to achieve great safety rating?

I wonder how much will it weight; do the designers have in their mind to fit it into the category A (motorcycle) restrictions? It has to be under 400kg by Russian version of the law, and I believe, more or less same everywhere?

And what engine will it have? 84 MPG is very well acihevable in the smaller maxi-scooter category, e.g. Honda's PCX150 сlaims 100 MPG [1] for it, and it goes about 70 mph tops. Improving fairing is known to have a noticeable effect on mileage, on scooters, so I believe a car could do better.

[1] http://powersports.honda.com/2016/pcx/specifications.aspx

What is a commodity? Dictionary says it's similar to goods or merchandise.

Not very. Chewing gum would help.

What hardware should I use if I want to be able to display arbitrary content on my TV and decide the lifecycle of my hardware myself? Apple TV isn't it, right?

Keep in mind that Microsoft spent 2 generations before converging on the current strategy: 'non-Pro' Surfaces 1 and 2 were ARM-powered Windows RT devices that could only run Windows Store apps (similar to iPad). When noone seemed to want that, Microsoft went out and made 'non-Pro' Surface 3 just a cheaper, slimmer, lower-powered device, running the same version of Windows as its bigger sibling; also non-Pro was released after the Pro and just after the newest Intel Atom chip: http://ark.intel.com/products/85475/Intel-Atom-x7-Z8700-Proc...

I actually expected the iPad Pro to support OS X apps; maybe via being powered by a new Apple Ax frankenchip that runs iOS ARM as well as x86 code (another payoff from the investment to custom chip design) and/or by requiring to recompile with the latest XCode for the App Store (a payoff from the long investment in LLVM).

Maybe next year.

nods They very well might be, though I never encountered explicit item rarity in my MUDs. Also, they mention being inspired by Ultima Online. Creators of Ultima Online were inspired by MUDs.

btw, Magic: the Gathering debuted in 1993.

I am nodding along, but we can't say we write in assembly for speed, if we don't achieve much of it, can we? Especially if portable C turns out to not actually be slower.

Are you familiar with BootForth - a 'Forth bootstrapping framework'? It was originally announced in 2008 in comp.lang.forth https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.lang.forth/tc_O...

Maybe by chance you even have the source? It seems to have disappeared from the net, together with Gitorious, and the original author is unavailable.

Was this system intended primarily as a teaching and learning experience?

> Now some easy FORTH primitives. These are written in assembly for speed.

To think again, shouldn't a modern C/C++ compiler be able to produce better code than this assembly without the intrinsic unportability? Let's take, e.g. SWAP

    defcode "SWAP",4,,SWAP
    pop %eax		// swap top two elements on stack
    pop %ebx
    push %eax
    push %ebx
    NEXT

(and NEXT is)

    /* NEXT macro. */
    .macro NEXT
    lodsl
    jmp *(%eax)
    .endm

This won't really be blazing fast, or will it?

Great game designers are not necessarily great game historians and/or have good memory.

> It's amazing how many new standard things came out of Diablo and Diablo II. [...] The rarity thing [for loot], for example, just kind of made sense.

While Diablo certainly helped popularize quite a few such features and even arguably gave birth to a genre (I heard people calling various other games a Diablo), it would be overconfident for them to claim inventing it: Magic the Gathering [1] had it years prior. There, rarity was implemented with printed pages: you print all your common cards on a Common sheet, uncommon cards on an Uncommon sheet and rare on Rare sheet; then put 1 card from Rare, 3 from Uncommon and 9 from Common into each booster pack. (not actual numbers! there are also Mythic Rares and each card has a tiny chance to be a Foil version, which complicates the situation, but the basic idea is something like that; from memory)

Same goes for the idea of a quest log: I don't have a specific example in mind, but I have a hard time believing no game had it before Diablo II.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering

Doesn't Android itself support x86? There are phones [1] and tablets [2] base on Intel chips, after all, and they run Android.

[1] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/smartphones/smartphon...

[2] http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/tablets/shop-tablets....

I wonder why the medical industry doesn't do this, combining an insulin pump and a constant glucose monitor into a single system?