uhm, actually plist files are xml

ACTUALLY plist files can be either textual or binary, which is very much not XML

I should have said not necessarily though, instead of just "not"... but it was kind of irrelevant to the main point.

They certainly aren't very compact as far as formats go, even on the watch.

Sigh, didn't read much of that original message, did you?

They don't NEED TO BE EXTREMELY COMPACT because they are sent over only once, when the app is loaded on the watch - that said, it is in the binary format which is much more compact than the textual format.

In use the watch pulls files from that bundle at runtime. And if you were any kind of programmer you'd know there is a tradeoff between compression and computation (which the watch has little of) in terms of file formats, so a fairly but not maximally compact file format is better for performance than whatever you are thinking of.

The UI definition is held in a Plist format (like, but not, XML) but that's not what the device gets. It gets a very compact binary form of your UI, that is loaded onto the watch before the user even opens your application.

The Apple Watch API is actually EXTREMELY conservative with what gets sent over to the watch, to the extent that even attempting to set the same label value twice in a row is rejected with a warning. and UI elements on the screen are wits-only (you cannot query the watch see what currently displayed values are).

Of course the United Nation's Intergovernmental Pannel on Climate would cherry pick data that could cost them $Billions in funding and the opertunity for Climatologists to attend conferences in exotic locations all over the world.

I suspect that his intended audience has a deep-seat dis-trust of establishment types, and the Youtube/Google conglomerate have long since out ran their antiestablishmentarianism days!

No what's hard is convincing people that what was happening 18 years ago isn't happening now.

The IPCC AR5 notes the lack of warming since 1998:

[T]he rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012) [is] 0.05 [–0.05 to +0.15] C per decade)which is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951 (1951–2012) [of] 0.12 [0.08 to 0.14] C per decade. IPCC AR5 weakens the case for AGW

OMG is that actually a negative warming in the range of possibilities reported by the IPCC?

Biochar puts carbon in the soil, improves the soil, sometimes dramatically, and keeps it there for mostly likely millennia.

It's encouraging that Taylor gets it, but the real problem is going to be convincing the the guitarists and violinists; there is a lot of superstitions involved in luthiery and especially in the classical markets. Currently most ebony available for reasonable priced instruments has had a coat of Lincoln black shoe dye applied to it, but admitting it publicly would kill your market. Everyone who considers themselves an elite performer is going to think that B grade Ebony is OK for the masses, but they'll get the "good" stuff because they are special, and a lot of mediocre players consider themselves elite performers.

The only reason they use ebony is because Stradivarius and Torres didn't have plastic.

There are lots of porn stars on Facebook.

And if you think you can't find racism on Facebook, you are an idiot.

Facebook does sensor SOME things, but not all the things. Like I said you can find any ideology on there you like.

Would have been much easier and less obvious for the pilot to drive 30lbs of C4 into position in a vehicle or a backpack or bag

You aren't going to be able to get close enough for the explosion to do anything on foot or in a vehicle. All of the major government structures now have very imposing anti-vehicular barricades there is no way around. On foot you are going to be challenged long before you reach your target, you are limited to what you can carry, AND you are only at ground level even if you do get close.

Someone in an auto-gyro could for example take out the dome above the chambers where everyone sits when Congress is in session, instead of not getting anywhere near that chamber on foot or in a car. Or they could fly right up to the window that the Oval Office looks out on...

First they came for the power users...

They aren't doing this to improve the user experience with the software. They're doing it to address the perception that "new and shiny" is what people want -- not functionality per se. They're aiming at the user experience of getting something new.

You know that marketing slogan, "sell by showing what problem you solve"? The "problem" that marketers have identified is the public's disinterest in things not new and not shiny -- and lately, not thin.

In my view, incompatibility is a sign of poor vision, poor support, and a lack of respect for those people who have come to you for what you offer. Speaking as a developer, if I come up with new functionality that is incompatible with the old, I add the new functionality without breaking the old. There are almost always many ways that can be done. I never did find a worthy excuse not to do it, either.

It isn't Google, or Apple, or whatever vendor that needs to learn a lesson. It's the public. I don't think it can be taught to them, either.

Squirrel!

Hopefully, but in most cases, bills tend to rise to meet available cash for some reason. Often when household incomes hit the $70K-$140K range depending on location, household money management starts to get strategic instead of purely tactical and things change.

Step 1) Call/email ahead and say you are totally harmless.
Step 2) Fly/Drive/Swim vehicle packed to the gill with explosives right into your target without bother.
Step 3) Prophet!

So instead of there being a helicopter in the air with a human at controls

What about an auto-gyro with 30 lbs or so of C4? Do you still want the "human at the controls"? You don't know what the intentions are, you just know it's very illegal to be there yet there he is.

At this point you'd have to be an idiot to be a terrorist and not try to pilot a small explosive laden gyro into some major target, since it's obviously so easy.

I can't believe the "no fly zone" over Washington is such a total sham with not even a monitoring aircraft on top of him. Just like the Pirate Code, the No Fly Zone appears to be more of what you would call guidelines than an actual rule...

It's gotta come from the right clearance to get there.

Come on, he had AT LEAST 100 feet of clearance. If that's not enough I don't know what is.