upthedale

That's what I was saying. Its still possible to use TouchDevelop and compass apps without the gyroscope, hence why it is only a warning.

I was wondering though if there are any apps (or if developers have the option to set this) where an optional device feature such as the gyro is so integral to the app that it won't even install without the device capability. This is what I haven't seen yet - though maybe the marketplace is already filtering them out for me.

The prerequisites could be handled in the same way that WP7 handles them already, by warning the user at install time in the store.

For example, some apps require a gyroscope, which I think handsets only came out with in the second generation. If you try to install one of these apps in the store, you'll be warned that some functionality won't work (or perhaps won't work at all - I haven't seen this). Similarly, I've seen reports that in the upcoming update aimed at lower end handsets, there'll be warnings in the store for the few apps that don't work with limited ram requirements.

I would predict Windows 8 will keep a similar list of the device's capabilities and warn the user in the store if they try to buy something that won't work.

A more in-depth article was previously posted on HN: http://www.themarysue.com/inclusion-what-jennifer-heplers-st...

HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3618301

I want to echo your sentiments on Arch. I have a very lightweight Arch guest running headless through virtual box. I then use PuTTY to connect to it from my Windows host. For me, this is a much better way to have access to a *nix environment than running Cygwin.

I wish all designers would read this regarding the size of body text: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/07/16-pixels-body-co...

It argues that body text should be at least 16 pixels in size.

Unfortunately 'normal' sized text isn't trendy. I hope one day it will be.

I wasn't going to comment, as everyone else seems to have already commented how horrible this looks (and performs).

However, on closer inspection it looks like they've just tried to copy Windows Phone. There's the obvious big bold tiles, a generic enough idea that I wouldn't completely attribute it to Metro. However it starts to get suspiciously similar when you compare the mobile link in the top right of html5rocks with the more apps arrow to the right of WP7 start screen: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/Windows_Phone_...

I remember reading about this a long time ago. The builder's own website on the subject is a much better link, which presents the hows and whys: http://www.simondale.net/house/

The OP is nothing more than a copy-paste job, though given how old it is, there might be some interesting discussion in the comments.

I believe from what I've read in the past that this was more of an exhibition piece than a long term place to live.

I haven't used Less, although I have been considering it recently.

My point was much more general though. A tool like this seems great to help catch problems early - earlier than your deployment step. Can you be absolutely sure that there aren't any latent bugs in Less or differences between lessc and less.js, such that you could never have any differences between your less.js-backed dev code and your lessc-backed deployed code? Even if the codepaths are identical between lessc and less.js, their execution environments aren't.

All I'm saying is that if you're going to use some _thing_ in your deployment scenarios, it would make sense to use the exact same thing throughout your development (where possible). The biggest argument against this in the case of Less is the hassle of compiling it. That's where a tool like SimpLESS or less.app steps up.

Its seems to have a pretty major difference to less.app in that it supports multiple platforms.

Regarding making compilation part of your deployment, you expose yourself to differences between the development and production code which might prove difficult to trace down the line. Keeping your development code as close to your production deployment seems smart to me.

Richard Stallman's Computer Setup from 2 years ago

Whilst not music, I find listening to http://www.rainymood.com to be great for concentrating. It's a 30 minute sample of a rain storm.

It got me through my Master's dissertation, where I had it on loop for hours at a time.

Fiddler tells me you can currently grab the mp3 from here http://173.193.205.68/audio/RainyMood.mp3 (this was especially useful for the times I wanted to be disconnected from the internet to focus on work).

Nice idea. However, is doing this client-side with javascript really the best approach? Surely a server-side solution to fix the html before sent to the client would be better.

I get that its very usable from the designer's point of view. They can just drop a little script like this into their document and forget about it, but after the umpteenth little script like this, won't performance become an issue?

My other issue is that until we get decent rendering across the board, anything with @font-face such as this is just infuriating to read. Whilst my browser of choice (Opera) is one of the more niche ones that people might not care about, a recent thread here on HN mentioned that Chrome on Windows also suffers from the chipped away look with @font-face - meaning a lot more people are exposed to this annoyance.

Looks good. Minor nuisance - The "fork on github" banner covered up the sidebar for me. Well, not so much the banner but its transparent bounding box, preventing me from clicking the underlying links.

My screen width is 1280, but I had a side panel open in my browser, reducing the available space. Of course maximising things got rid of the problem, but why should I do that? :)

Maybe move it to the left? (either the banner or sidebar)

That's a false analogy though. To keep with your automobile theme, this is more like taking a car, and using it as a boat.

Instead, we should throw support behind something that is designed to be a boat. In this case, for example, SVG would fill the role of rendering logos much better.

My point is, I'm not sure how much of this bleeding edge demonstration will be able to trickle down into the real use case of CSS, which is in web page presentation, not drawing pictures.

Normally I'd be the first to bash the iPhone, but this hardly seems like a balanced or constructive article does it?

That's likely all the installed stuff you have accumulated over time with components set to run at startup - not the OS itself. Think programs like iTunes, Flash, Skype, Java, to name just a few common things people install which is guilty of this (annoyingly even Microsoft's own programs like Messenger can contribute to the problem too). All of them do stuff at startup, be it checking for updates or kicking off background services.

Have a look at Autoruns[1], which is a great SysInternals tool to show you what is set to run at startup, and lets you selectively disable them.

[1] http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.asp...

And not just the OS, but the associated app ecosystem will stagnate.

Whether you care about apps is a separate issue.

I read in a thread on xda that some people were asking about porting dalvik to WebOS so that android apps could be run without flashing to Android. I have no idea about the practicalities of doing that though (or the legality, given the whole Oracle/Android kerfuffle that's ongoing).

The Met is responsible for Greater London (where all the riots seem to be so far). The City of London Police is responsible for the Square Mile (the actual City) in the centre.

The City of London police don't especially carry firearms. That said, you may see more of the specially armed police in the City, simply because of a high terrorist threat

Highly speculative. Conversely, maybe there's some subtle, innate quality that higher IQ people appreciate about certain browsers.

Either way, as an Opera user, I have some ammunition next time I find myself in a childish browser argument ;)

I always thought Opera was very standards compliant.

Potentially there are some shortcomings when it comes to new technologies which I'm going to sweepingly categorise as being HTML5 related, but that gets into a separate argument that HTML5 is still not yet a standard.

At the same time, for "everyday use" (whatever that really means) I've had no issue with standards compliance, and Opera does certainly have support some some not-yet-standardised things. Of course, there's the usual caveat that YMMV.

May I ask what issues you have with their falling behind on standards compliance?

Maybe just ask which browser people use from a selection, obviously including Opera as an option.

Edit: OT, but it would be interesting to do this in the near future to compare and see how much bias there really is in this poll.

As others have pointed at, location is a big factor here. The issue I have is that it is US-centric. Has there been a poll or is there any data regarding the HN demographics (including region)?

Seems loosely similar to how I'm using .Net4's Tasks from the Task Parallel Library. I didn't particularly focus on the effects of the garbage collector when I came up with my approach, but it does at least achieve point A in his opening paragraph ((a) is simpler to use)

With PCs as they are now, there's no base-line, no consistency in what the hardware can do. Sure, games might have minimum and recommended specs, but they're not perfect, and its often a blurry area.

What I was getting at would make it black and white. Either my Win8 PC could play Xbox 720 games, or it wouldn't. So A Win8 tablet, probably not, but a powerful Win8 gaming rig, sure.

This is something I've been musing about for a couple of years now... ever since I wondered what the next-gen consoles might be like, given their convergence with PCs.

What I would really like to see is the reverse of the title - for Windows 8 to run XBox 720. I'd like to see the 720 become a software platform, which could run on both dedicated console hardware and a more traditional PC. The software platform could define a very strict minimum-hardware specification, which would set a consistent base-line for everyone.

And by minimum-hardware specification, I'm thinking much like the strategy with Windows Phone 7. Whilst there is a choice in handsets from different manufacturers, there are some very strict minimum-requirements. Manufacturers are allowed to go above and beyond these requirements, but at least there is a consistent base-line, leading to a very well done development experience (contrast with the 'fragmentation' of Android, or the current Windows development experience, where you have no idea what to expect, except for maybe the little bit of expectation you have from hardware supporting a given version of DirectX).

So Microsoft could continue to produce their own dedicated hardware units that meet the minimum spec, but anyone with a PC that meets the 720 spec could also play the same games and use the same peripherals.

Of course PC hardware would continue to improve with time, but the 720 minimum requirements will be static, so a game should run the same on all Xbox 720 hardware implementations.

(Potentially, game developers could be allowed to make use of the better hardware when it is available to improve graphics, but only as an optional extra where available, and only if the game will still run on the minimum 720 spec. This could be dangerous though if things became too inconsistent, from the gamer's point of view).

So what I'm saying is that games would be certified to run on the 720 platform, regardless of what form that platform takes (so long as it meets the requirements).

Then maybe 2 or 3 years down the line (whenever the next-next-gen 'Xbox 1080' comes around), all that would need to happen is for a new minimum-hardware requirement be defined, with a new Xbox 1080 certification for games. Backwards compatibility with the 720 would be trivial.

Of course, this is just my idea. As good an idea as I think it is, maybe I'm missing something

The point is that the act of typing it does help understand the code.

I don't know if there's any psychological basis for this, or if anyone else does this, but personally I jot down loads of notes when learning things and playing with ideas. However, I rarely read back over them. Instead, just the act of writing them down is sufficient to stick them in my brain.

I guess the same applies to learning with code samples.

Simply put, I am not aware of any heavily publicised security breaches with Live Mesh like there have been Dropbox.

The impression I've had in recent times (something presumably shared by the article's author) is that security is something that Microsoft takes very seriously these days. That has happened out of necessity, originally precipitated by security flaws in the Windows line of OS. But at least they've already learnt that security is a serious issue and tightened things up - something dropbox (and other players from recent hacking scandals) are only just learning.

Interesting. Of course I based my statements on my travelling through those places for a few days - I guess that's significantly more different to actually living somewhere in cost terms than I had considered.

> a location that’s far less expensive, and easier to immigrate to, than Silicon Valley.

4 years ago I travelled (mostly-) western Europe by train, staying in some of the big cities. Compared to the likes of Paris, Barcelona, Rome and Munich, I felt Amsterdam was a lot more expensive.

Of course times may have changed, and the comparison was to Silicon Valley, which I have no experience of, but it struck me as a strange point to pick out when I would have considered there to be more compelling arguments specifically about Amsterdam.

Very true. It is my understanding though that the primary use case of the VM role is to allow legacy applications to sit in the cloud without needing to rebuild for the Azure platform.