Comment Sign me up for a trial now (Score 1) 51
... and wake me in a couple of years. 5 ideally.
Comment Rat and mouse? (Score 1) 111
Don't you mean "cat and mouse"?
Oh, right. Got it.
Comment Nonsense? (Score 1) 411
Aren't they called string theorists?
Comment Compiled? (Score 2) 64
How do they prove that this source code is actually what was compiled?
Comment Something fishy here? (Score 2) 149
Is it just me, or is this somewhat fishy? First, the company posts an almost billion-dollar loss on Friday then botches the BBM to iOS/Android rollout. And then once the share price is driven down to almost $8, sells itself for $9 / share.
And of course there is this: http://www.thestar.com/business/2013/08/16/blackberry_ceo_thorsten_heins_could_get_556_million_if_ousted_after_sale.html
Comment Re:Never (Score 1) 194
+1 this.
I started my (pusher, Rotax 912) airplane engine, did a run-up (4000 rpm), taxied out, flew back and shut down.
Only then did I wonder where my fully glass fronted phone was. (I won't name the brand!)
Answer? On the table where I left it. Right behind said chaos that I had unleashed. Well, it wasn't exactly on the table, it was in the corner on the floor having been thrown around a lot. With everything else!
Undamaged, unhurt. Pretty darned impressive.
Comment Re:It's not radio, it's a jukebox (Score 1) 143
That's a surprisingly good point about what makes good radio, and well taken. However, I'd like to offer a counterpoint, and a rebuttal. Ha, I said rebuttal.
What happens when the time of day is no longer important? The Internet is global. I'm someone who goes between GMT-8 and GMT+1 on a regular basis. That's 9 hours of difference. Should we all keep zulu time for our playlists?
And what if we don't want to hear the "segues" and actually just listen to the music? My understanding is that commercial radio requires the chit-chat so that people can't just record the music. I've always resented it and it is a big part of the reason I don't listen to broadcast radio.
Finally, about "spontaneity". Again going on my unlikely-to-be-exactly-correct understanding, but isn't commercial radio the exact opposite of spontaneous?
Personally, I don't care about who brings it to me, but since I've left university, I really appreciate services that let me try and then buy (or not - I'm a paid monthly streaming subscriber) rather than being out of the economy entirely. I spent more last year in my streaming subscription than I had in the previous 5 years on CDs.
Maybe this type of service isn't so bad after all.
Just my opinion.
Comment Panama has already minted $1 USD coins (Score 1) 943
A little background first: Panama uses the US Dollar but calls it the "Balboa". 1 Balboa = 1 Dollar and they look exactly the same because they are actually US dollar bills. Doing this has given Panama an economic stability unheard of in Latin America and contributes to the consistent annual 9% economic growth that the country enjoys, all while keeping inflation low.
A couple of years ago, Panama started to mint their own $1 coins. See here: http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_17/issue_02/economy_12.html. Now granted, they can't be used outside Panama and were actually minted in Canada, but the "Martinellis" as the Panamanians call the coins, named after the president, have some significant advantages over dollar bills:
- In a country where dollar bills do not get replaced frequently and are usually filthy, Martinellis are clean and durable.
- $1 in Panama can get a lot done for you: groceries bagged and carried to your car, a parking space from a "bien cuidado", and two of them will get you a taxi ride in the city. So dropping one or two coins is a convenient way to pay.
- Martinellis represent money that stays inside Panama and can only be used to pay for goods in Panama, thus reducing capital outflow (but of course, not by much as there aren't that many in circulation)
However, this money is minted independently of the US, so it actually represents Panama's own currency. I'm not sure if this is good or bad though.
Submission + - In Space, Cambridge Will See If Someone Can Hear You Scream (screaminspace.com)
mhocker writes: Science is all about testing theories to validate them and students at Cambridge University are doing exactly that with a long-held theory that "In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(film). The team from the Cambridge University Spaceflight (CUSF) society are launching a smartphone into orbit that will play videos of members of the public screaming in a variety of ways. As the videos are played, the team hope to find the answer to the question of whether or not anyone can hear you scream in space. More here: http://www.screaminspace.com./
The Struggles of Developing StarCraft 135
An anonymous reader writes "Patrick Wyatt led production efforts for several of Blizzard Entertainment's early games, including Warcraft 1 & 2 and StarCraft. Wyatt has just published an in-depth look at the development of StarCraft, highlighting many of the problems the team encountered, and several of the hacks they came to later regret. Quoting: 'Given all the issues working against the team, you might think it was hard to identify a single large source of bugs, but based on my experiences the biggest problems in StarCraft related to the use of doubly-linked linked lists. Linked lists were used extensively in the engine to track units with shared behavior. With twice the number of units of its predecessor — StarCraft had a maximum of 1600, up from 800 in Warcraft 2 — it became essential to optimize the search for units of specific types by keeping them linked together in lists. ... All of these lists were doubly-linked to make it possible to add and remove elements from the list in constant time — O(1) — without the necessity to traverse the list looking for the element to remove — O(N). Unfortunately, each list was 'hand-maintained' — there were no shared functions to link and unlink elements from these lists; programmers just manually inlined the link and unlink behavior anywhere it was required. And hand-rolled code is far more error-prone than simply using a routine that's already been debugged. ... So the game would blow up all the time. All the time.'"
Wyatt also has a couple interesting posts about the making of Warcraft 1.
Comment Yes there are release notes (Score 1) 145
... you just have to be a developer under NDA to read them. There are lots of changes and improvements but it's still beta software.
Comment Re:RIM, you're not paying attention (Score 1) 299
There is a company that already does exactly this - Good Technology. I investigated using it for our company and it seems to offer exactly what we would need to replace Blackberries with iPhones. But there are some problems that are preventing us from switching:
1. PIN to PIN messages. Unbelievably, these insecure messages are very popular with some users. No other platform supports them because they are the native protocol of the Blackberry.
2. BBM. WhatsApp is a good alternative but you have to convinced all your contacts to get it.
3. No integration of Good with the rest of iOS. So no Siri, calendar integration, etc. It lives in its own little box. Really not ideal.
So between the network effect (1,2) and lack of integration (3) some customers are not yet switching.
Comment Smaller, Denser Cells? (Score 2) 103
Is it not possible to make the cell sites closer together? Or would this require actual capital investment on the side of the carriers?
Comment Stallman Dialogues (Score 1) 373
This is truly hilarious...
http://thestallmandialogues.com/
Comment Sounds convenient to me (Score 1) 262
I can pick up my new 27" iMac at the Apple store and go get a copy of Windows to run on Boot Camp or VMWare, all without leaving the mall. I think Microsoft has this all figured out!
