What pisses me off is that Google goes to areas that are already well serviced by other vendors, and taking FOREVER to roll out. At this rate, they'll manage 10% coverage in the US by the turn of the next century.
Abstracting functionality across different hardware platforms is still not a hack. If different algorithms need to be used to get the same results on different browsers, it is still not a hack in the definition of the term. I guess if you want to be lazy in your use of the term, it can be described as just about anything... but no, it's not actually a hack. It's a bit sad that the precision of technical language has deteriorated so much in the internet age.
I described hacks. Hacks are unconventional workarounds that effectively break the standards/restrictions of whatever medium you are working in to achieve a goal. Exploits are a hack, using functions completely contrary to their purpose, in an effort to accomplish something the system is not supposed to accomplish (for example, causing a buffer overrun that in turn triggers code to operate at a higher privilege level). One might hack a hardware system by crossing specific wires. We might patch compiled binary code to overcome the limitations imposed by the original author's design. A hack might employ a combination of features on a hardware chip to exceed its capabilities.
jQuery.js is a collection of routines... some of them have quite a bit of code behind them to perform standard tasks that have to be done in completely different ways between two platforms. This is not a hack. It's just more javascript code. That javascript code is not doing anything that the javascript compiler or the DOM for that browser platform isn't allowing them to do. It might fall back to a safe failure mode.... but it isn't magically executing low-level assembly to re-write how the browser works or renders. In some cases, it is just unifying the misguided approaches two different browser development teams interpreted some ambiguous HTML or Javascript specification.
Now... I suppose the OP could just have written code specific to the Panasonic's implementation, but why bother? If he writes jQuery, he can easily port that code... or use other people's code. A good developer tries to not write more code than they have to... design is the important part. We don't build new car models every year with completely new wheels engineered for them, do we? Likewise, there is a WEALTH of javascript code out there and a lot of it works with jQuery. Why should he spend an extra few weeks creating custom code for the Panasonic's platform if he doesn't have to? Worse... why should he forgo leveraging other code that might use jQuery as a base? That's not using a hack, it's using a LIBRARY.
What is being hacked? What exploit is required to make jQuery.js operate? How does it modify the javascript language to work?
jQuery.js is just a library of script routines designed to make a javascript programmer's life easier, like every other library out there, whether it's for C++, ActionScript, C# or assembler. It's not a binary... it is a collection of javascript functions.
Calling it a hack seems a bit ignorant of what hacks are. I've written hacks... patched XBox XDK libraries so I could get my Media X Menu to access extra hard drives in the system... interrupt routines loaded from DATA statements on my old C=64 that allowed me to display more sprites on screen than the hardware was supposed to display, or to do cool things with the borders. I've written multi-tasking kernels with assembler interspersed with the C code so I could directly access or manipulate hardware in embedded systems. Those are hacks.
At worst, you might call jQuery.js a kluge... but even then, jQuery.js works pretty well and doesn't require you to jump through hoops when making small changes (which kluges tend to do).
Well, 10 years is fine, maybe a bit longer, but more importantly, 'supporting works' should be submitted with the government to maintain the copyright... in other words, software source code would have to be submitted to the government and kept in the Library of Congress, made available when the copyright expires.
Let's call this a measure to protect the heritage of technology.
The side issue is trademarks. I don't have a problem with trademarks not expiring (i.e., nobody could make a Mickey Mouse movie, though the copyright might have expired on Steamboat Willie, for example).
In that light, you'd be able to, say, use Duke Nukem code to make a new game after the copyright expires, but you wouldn't be able to make money on the Duke Nukem character. The repository would give open source a boost, though there would be problems with the tools themselves.
I think the copyright period should be extended if the work is receiving "active and significant" support - i.e. the application or game is receiving regular enhancements and not abandoned.
Seriously, who writes this stuff? I remember a minor earthquake we had in Michigan in the mid-80s. Why would they suddenly stop? Geological activity occurs over geological time scales, which is to say, thousands, even millions of years.
Reminds me of a time when I went to access expertsexchange.com on the job, to get a quick solution to a coding issue I was having, back around 2000... the web filter classified it as "sexually oriented" and it took me a minute to realize how the name had parsed out.
You can now get to the site via experts-exchange.com, though it is far less useful these days.
I've been using TVMobili on a Kubuntu machine I have set up as a media server. It's not free... you can pay a one-time fee of $30 or $1.50 per month - but you can try it out first, to see if you like it. I've found it just works for everything I've thrown at it, I mostly use it for playback on my Samsung plasma smart TV (AllShare feature), handling MKVs, MP4s without a hitch, as well as the usual formats and containers. It can also do transcoding, and it has a web interface (My server sits in our basement).
I have streamed to iOS and Android devices, too (with the right media player clients).
...AMD GPUs, apparently. I haven't tried it yet, but I've been waiting to get it set up on a gaming rig I built for our living room.
Why do I think they ordered those parts from the most expensive sources possible?
Who wants to be the first developer to get sued when your program doesn't dial 911 (perhaps because there is no signal)? Who wants to be the first developer sued because it got the location wrong?
Way too much liability potential. IT is too important a thing to mess up, and you can bet that something will mess up eventually, and the developer will be blamed, regardless of whether or not they are actually responsible.
Just a quick note... sugar cane ethanol costs about US$0.22 per liter to produce in Brazil, or about US$0.83/gallon.
IF E85 was less than $2/gallon, it would be viable to use, but since E85 has about 80% of the mileage rating as "regular" gasoline, I think it has to be even cheaper per mile to buy, since I am trading fuel range as well for the cheaper biofuel alternative. I might be willing to make more gas station stops for cheaper gas.
The last time I calculated it, it was still more expensive per mile to buy and use E85 in my car.
Switchgrass, Sugar Cane, and Hemp all provide more sustainable, easier-to-convert alternatives to creating ethanol, which, even with the subsidy, was more expensive per mile to operate vehicles with when made using corn.
These alternatives cost about 30% less to convert and are easier to grow.
They can replace everything with Ribbons... allowing users to customize their experience! Not only will they never be able to sign up for health care now, but they won't even know where to click to exit the web site!
Actually, I heard he hates Visual Studio 2012 even more. Something about using bland, similar monochromatic icons tends to bother people who work with image processing and innovate the field using all that wonderful color information in those images.
Same difference though... some idiot exec at Microsoft has decided the world needs Fisher-price Playschool operating systems and development tools.
Ludicrous rantings that apply sexism to tools deserve scorn, satire and parody.
Are there "Feminist" wheels?
A better (but still stupid) question might be: Are languages Anglo-centric? At least we could make some sort of case and fluff up enough flowery academic language and references to make it stick - and yet it would also be pointless.
Programming languages only deserve to be criticized in terms of their ability to produce usable software, measured by productivity, ease of learning, flexibility, and robustness. Anything else is simply inane rambling.
If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
